Marvin, the heart of the company

We spoke with Marco Dezi, COO & Partner of Riba Mundo Tecnología, about Marvin, the heart of the company.

Why did you decide to develop your own software?

Marco Dezi One of our premises is to be aware of the present while looking towards the future because, from the very beginning, we had a clear understanding of our growth potential. As a start-up growing rapidly across all areas — sales, purchasing, employees and more — we had to choose between a programme adapted to a planned business model and a tool focused on problem-solving, capable of helping us adapt to the changes that a start-up like ours experiences in real time. We decided to embrace both options and chose to develop software tailored to our needs. It follows an agile method and brings together all our internal activities and procedures created in collaboration with PwC and Deloitte. It also centralises all company data in a single database.

What are Marvin’s main strengths?

Marco Dezi: It is able to simplify our internal activities by optimising management times through process automation, ranging from procurement and warehouse management to sales made through all our go-to-market channels. The software also allows us to compare the different prices offered by our suppliers to optimise purchases and to compare our competitors’ price lists in order to choose the best selling price. It is almost like seeing each product as a stock market security subject to market fluctuations. Thanks to Marvin, we know in real time the margin of our sales operations, both globally and by individual product, and we manage our treasury quickly and easily. This allows us to have a clear view of our cash flow, enabling us to estimate our operating funding requirements through realistic projections and by working with various scenarios depending on different parameters involved, such as warehouse turnover, future purchasing needs, sales forecasts and so on. Marvin integrates and connects with the company’s main tools and applications, avoiding data duplication and centralising everything in a single database. It also keeps track of the company’s main tax obligations.

Stock, down to the finest detail

In short, it is an excellent Business Intelligence tool that analyses specific data through various reports; it suggests actions such as creating automatic orders for suppliers to optimise warehouse stock and avoid product shortages. All this is based not only on the arithmetic average of sales, but also on the “potential” calculated by an algorithm created with our programmers and software developers. One of the areas of the company where Marvin brings significant value is stock control management, a key area because price fluctuation is a variable that affects margins. Therefore, the software identifies “inactive” products across different time periods and suggests price reductions that allow for efficient stock rotation. Ultimately, thanks to Marvin, we can plan, execute, analyse and monitor all stages of our operating process, as well as make changes or improvements where necessary. All this is possible thanks to the excellent work carried out by the technical staff, who created a database structure capable of supporting future developments and adapting to new needs.

The new app

You launched the B2B website in September. Is Marvin connected to the e-commerce platform?

Marco Dezi: Yes, Marvin connects to the website to communicate stock changes, prices, order downloads and new customer registrations in real time, as well as offering other benefits. It is also able to identify lists of inactive customers and suggest commercial actions. In this way, we have become a highly digital company, flexible and adaptable to change. Furthermore, after the success of our e-commerce platform, we are already working on our app for both Android and Apple, so that we can always stay close to our customers.

How did the staff receive Marvin?

Marco Dezi: We knew that some issues would arise at the beginning. For this reason, we stayed close to our staff to help them understand all of Marvin’s potential through ad hoc training for each department. Automation and technology are the future, but without human resources, and without people’s qualities and willingness to contribute ideas to the project, technology alone is nothing.

Do you own Marvin’s copyright and usage rights?

Marco Dezi: Yes. Since there was no in-house IT and programming staff, the project was developed by the DZ Capital Ltd team and financed by the SGR fund together with Abanca. Ownership and copyright belong to Riba Mundo Tecnología and are registered with the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers.

Marco Dezi thanks all the staff of Riba Mundo Tecnología and its partners — customers, suppliers, banks, consultants and more — “who allowed us to make this dream come true”. In particular, he thanks Vincenzo Zizza, Project Manager at DZ Capital, business consultant and e-commerce specialist; Marco Cinti, Senior Developer at Idea Lab; and Alessio Dezi, CEO of IdeaLab and Senior Developer: “They supported us in the development of Marvin and our website, and they will certainly help us in the future with new technological developments.”