Our People : Bernat Caba
Meet Bernat Caba, our Rubber Business Manager, who shares his journey so far at Safic-Alcan, as well as his approach to building trust with the team and partners.
When and why did you join Safic-Alcan? What made you consider joining us?
I started working in sales almost by chance when, in 2006, I founded my own company with a childhood friend. We successfully grew the company for eight years, at which point we sold it to a pharmaceutical company where I worked for two more years. After this time, I decided to try my luck in a multinational and started working as a Sales Manager for a German company dedicated to the production and sale of rubber additives. At that time, my job profile finally incorporated what ended up being two of my great passions: sales and the world of rubber. After five years working in this company, at the beginning of 2022, I received a call from a former French colleague who explained to me that, in the company he had recently joined, they were looking for someone to lead the Rubber department of Safic-Alcan Spain. I was immediately interested in the project, as the degree of freedom and flexibility that Safic offered me was much greater and more motivating than in my previous job. Another advantage was moving from a manufacturing company to a distribution company, where the number of projects and products grew exponentially. So, in May 2022, I joined the Safic-Alcan family.
What do you believe are the key challenges facing the rubber industry today, and how is your team working to overcome them?
Since I joined Safic-Alcan, not only the rubber world but the entire business world has been facing continuous situations that represent challenges unknown until now. Market demand, prices, number of competitors, etc., are changing depending on energy crises, wars, transportation problems, volcanoes, container availability, and millions of other variables that we now must include in our forecasts for the future. Apart from these general conditioning factors, the rubber business is very much affected by the automotive business. I would go so far as to say that the automobile is one of the items that is now undergoing the most profound rethinking process. Many concepts such as car sharing, diesel, hybrid, and electric are now on the table to try to define where the new automobile is going. This situation, far from discouraging us, is making our work much more exciting and making it more important than ever to accompany our customers through this period full of uncertainty.
You'll be attending the Plastics&Rubber Spain 2024 show. What are your expectations from this event?
For us, the Spanish Safic-Alcan Rubber team, it is a perfect occasion to put our principals in contact with our customers. We conceive the Safic-Alcan booth as a space for the exchange of ideas and technical talks between our customers and the technical teams of our represented companies. We are very excited to welcome all the Spanish rubber family to Barcelona to spend two days talking about trends and applications within the rubber business. To make these two days even more special, on March 7th, the same fairground will host the technical day of the Spanish Rubber Association, where Safic-Alcan will actively participate through conferences and round tables.
What is something curious to know about you?
Two of my passions are sports and movies. I practice many sports (although none of them too well). I enjoy running, swimming, kayaking, and cycling. As for movies, I like everything, but my hidden pleasure is westerns. It's also not uncommon to find me in a nice restaurant enjoying a glass of red wine.
How do you try to incorporate Safic values of Commitment, Differentiation, Ethics, Trust & Reliability, Sustainable Development, Teamwork, and Transparency in your day-to-day work?
In my daily life, I treat others as I would like to be treated myself. When it comes to business, I apply the same credo. I use the same sincerity, transparency, and honesty that I would expect from my supplier. I believe this behavior is an attitude that people notice and that helps create lasting relationships based on trust and the common good. As you can imagine, it was not difficult to match Safic's values with my own. They were a perfect fit from day one.
Do you have nice memories &/or stories with colleagues?
One of the things that surprised me the most when I came to Safic was that they celebrate everything. They bring buns for their birthday, we celebrate every month that a department makes a record result, we celebrate Christmas, etc. We even organized a party to present the BUDGET! This creates the idea that the achievements of any department are something that is achieved by the whole company. I have found that this is one of the pillars of the wonderful team we have made up of people who are proud to belong to Safic.
Safic-Alcan in one sentence :
We do business with the understanding that life is long.
