#Managing director at teamspirit uk skin
#Managing director at teamspirit uk pro

Running parallel to that is the importance of listening. That’s a Rational strength – not trying to be everything to everybody, but having a very strong brand identity and quality of product. “If you put aside ConnectedCooking then we really only have two products that we need to focus on – the iCombi and the iVario.

In the technology space, particularly, companies are renowned for diversifying into new areas and bringing out additional product sets all the time, but that’s famously not the case with Rational. One of the biggest differences between Rational and his previous employers is product strategy. “Big groups like Yum! and Nando’s were key customers that I had engagement with, albeit the difference was that we were installing check-outs versus what was going on in the back of the kitchen.” “I spent a number of years across Epson and NCR in the point-of-sale business, which is very vertically driven,” he reveals. This is South Africa-born Land’s first executive role in the catering equipment sector, although he does have what he calls a “tenuous” link to the hospitality world through past assignments in the tech space. And that’s both customers and internal – time on the road with sales people and with the leadership teams from our dealers, end-users and service partners,” he says. I love being with people – I think that is something that runs right throughout my career. “For me, when you are based in an office environment somewhat, it’s equally important to be operational – I like to roll up my sleeves and get out amongst it. With 2023 plans and budgets to finalise as well, there is little time to relax, but that’s exactly how he likes it. You won’t find many blank pages in his diary – the next three months are very much about visiting as many dealers, service partners and end-user customers as he can.

#Managing director at teamspirit uk skin

Then it was back on home soil, getting under the skin of a UK and Irish business that posted sales just shy of £50m for the year to 31 December 2021. He spent the first couple of weeks at Rational’s HQ in Landsberg am Lech understanding the corporate philosophy, meeting with executive management and board members, and, just as importantly, engaging with the company’s product, marketing and manufacturing teams. Supply chain matters aside, Land’s first three months in charge have been hectic to say the least. Unless something drastic happens we shouldn’t have any reason or concern to go back to any significant lead times, which is good news.”

Our warehouse can hold 3,000 pallets for us to leverage. “Obviously we haven’t been able to because there has been such a significant demand and when you’ve got a six-month lead time you’ve got to build up a good few thousand units in your backlog – but once you get back to some reasonable normality it is easier to be able to plan. “It gives us the ability to manage supply chain or lead times to some degree,” he explains. That should mean lead times don’t creep back up again. Land notes that Rational’s UK entity is slightly different to other European subsidiaries in so much as it operates a large warehousing facility here.

#Managing director at teamspirit uk pro

Work undertaken by its head office, coupled with an improvement in the inflow of components, led the company to announce that UK orders placed for its iCombi Pro will now be delivered within four weeks, aligning with the iVario. “We were sitting at 30 to 32 weeks and that’s a long time out.”įortunately, the situation has improved significantly in recent weeks. “Undoubtedly the main question has been when is Rational going to be able to offer better lead times than what we were?” he admits. Needless to say, there has only been one thing everyone has wanted to talk to him about since he took up the post. In its case, a prolonged shortage of electronic chips has played havoc with production schedules, even leading it to part-manufacture ovens and complete final assembly locally once components became available to ship.

Rational has been one of the biggest casualties of the well-documented supply chain issues that have plagued the industry. There was just one problem: the equipment that customers remained so desperate to get hold of hasn’t been readily available. Indeed, he discovered a UK business that was recognised as the leader in its category when it comes to market share, boasted a clearly-defined route-to-market and where demand for its products was at an all-time high.