For nearly three decades, the division of a global giant “Festo” in Kaunas has been growing and changing together with the city, Lithuania and the whole world. Starting with just a few employees and product sales services, today’s “Festo” in Kaunas provides about 150 different services and unites about 500 employees with different competencies. Rapid growth and progressive approach of the company have been recognized at the “K.A.V.A. 2019” business awards, where “Festo” was awarded in the “Foreign Investor: Services” nomination.
From two employees to half a thousand
Recalling the start of “Festo” in Kaunas, G. Belazarienė mentions that at that time there was only the sales team, and today “Festo” provides about 150 different services in Lithuania.
“This means that since 1992, we not only have grown in the number of employees but also changed the profile of our company. It’s pleasant to see that starting with 2 employees, we currently have almost 500 of them,” says the Head of Human Resources.
What’s the secret to success? Sincere, healthy ambitious and dedicated people who are not afraid to take on new challenges while being focused on the high quality of the work they do. According to G. Belazarienė, the work of Lithuanian team speaks for itself, and it is often praised
An important aspect of internationalization
Although the majority of “Festo” employees are from Kaunas, they are not limited to Lithuania. “It is great that we have colleagues who came back from abroad to work here in Lithuania. Our CEO is from Finland, we have colleagues from Latvia, Poland, Russia, Germany, and Italy. We even have one colleague from Argentina,” says G. Belazarienė.
Not only the team but also the DNA of the company is international: globally, “Festo” is a family-owned company, which places great emphasis on internal culture and values that are not simply written down but are followed in everyday work.
“Our contribution to “Festo’s” overall activity is best reflected in our contribution to the global processes of the organization. For example, our Document Processing Center staff is responsible for primary sales documents from 25 countries, which means that we are a strategic partner in ensuring the sales of “Festo” products. Another example is our IT department working together with IT centers in Asia as well as North and South America to ensure uninterrupted support for global IT services 24/7,” says Giedrė Belazarienė, Head of Human Resources at “Festo” Lithuania.
Focus on customer and innovation
The service center of a manufacturing company has its own specificity and differs from the service centers that serve another kind of companies. What are the differences?
“First of all, the variety of functions: it covers all areas of the production company (from the registration of sales documents to the planning of production operations, etc.). Another feature is attention to the customer. This means that the customer’s order must be executed on time and meet high-quality standards,” says Belazarienė.
It is no coincidence that in Lithuania, “Festo” has two teams working solely on the planning and distribution of production orders globally. G. Belazarienė also mentions interesting projects that help the colleagues in production sector: last year, the team of IT developers in Kaunas created a platform that helps new production workers learn how to work on the assembly line with the aid of virtual reality glasses. This technology has reduced the training of new employees from 8 hours to 1 hour!
Source: Kaunas IN
