BIC's Model for Global and Operational Manufacturing Success

In an exclusive Speaker Spotlight interview, Mario Berra, SVP, Global Manufacturing GSC at BIC, shares his career journey, strategies for navigating global challenges and approaches to fostering innovation and collaboration.
From balancing global frameworks with local needs to driving operational resilience, gain valuable insights ahead of his session titled 'Overcoming Global and Operational Challenges in Manufacturing: BIC's Model For Success' at the 11th annual American Manufacturing Summit.
Tell us a bit about you and your role as the SVP of Global Manufacturing GSC at BIC
My name is Mario Berra and I am the current Senior Vice President of Global Manufacturing for BIC. My role covers two divisions: everything related to our stationery products and also Blade Excellence, our shavers division.
Globally, I am responsible for 12 different manufacturing sites. We have two locations in Mexico, one of which is my base office in Mexico City. We also have two locations in Brazil, in the Manaus area on the Amazonian side of the country.
In France, we operate four factories, three of which are dedicated to stationery products and one for shavers. Our largest shaver manufacturing site is in Athens, Greece, and we have four factories in Africa spread across different regions. These are located in the North in Tunisia, in Nigeria and Kenya in the West and East, and also in South Africa.
I have spent my entire career in the manufacturing industry, with extensive experience in multicultural leadership positions across various countries such as Mexico, the US, Brazil, South Korea, France and more.
Prior to joining BIC, I worked at Electrolux Home Products, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Daewoo Electronics in different roles within industrial operations, where I led and coordinated all operational activities, including safety, finance, production, engineering and quality, as well as the installation and start-up of six new manufacturing facilities.
I have been with BIC for almost 13 years. I initially started as a Factory Director at the Mexico City factory with a plan to succeed the Head of Americas for Stationery Products, which I achieved in 2014.
In 2015, I transitioned to oversee all of the Americas for stationery and then, in 2019, we consolidated the stationery and shavers categories into one unified business. In 2020, I took on the global responsibility of overseeing all of these manufacturing sites.
In my current role, I am responsible for ensuring the safety of operations, optimising production capacity, efficiency and resources to meet BIC's service, financial and manufacturing objectives.
This has been a continuous journey of change, improvement, learning and building strong connections with the team.
Can you share more about your career path, leading up to your current role at BIC?
Historically, we are a company with very strong industrial expertise, but we were quite isolated in each of our locations.
In recent years, the integration of global continuous improvement, global manufacturing, world-class efficiency and operations, and connecting our teams and experts from different countries, has been one of the most important journeys.
Through this journey, we have been able to create different workflows to connect our large group of experts.
We have many experts with various focuses, including continuous improvement, safety, environmental and health initiatives. Additionally, we have experts who are highly technical in specific processes and industrialisation processes.
We’ve been on this journey to connect and create a global industrial expertise model and it has been very successful so far. We have achieved excellent integration across the different communities. We established our methodology to measure the maturity of our manufacturing operations using a standard approach and we developed this transversal connection.
In the last two years, we began implementing a new methodology, which I will share in more detail during my session at the American Manufacturing Summit. This methodology gathers ideas from all employees, with a particular focus on frontline members, to foster a continuous improvement environment. It ensures that ideas flow from everyone across all aspects of the operation.
During 2024, we carried out a global rollout of this methodology across all factories, which we call 'BIC Up'.
It's a methodology designed to create an idea-driven organisational culture and it has been one of the most important parts of our journey.
What strategies have you implemented to effectively navigate disruptions caused by current inflation, geopolitical issues and workforce challenges? And what lessons can other manufacturers learn?
Throughout our manufacturing and all of our supply chain parameters, we have established four pillars to work with.
One of the pillars focuses on end-to-end. In the past, we used to analyse each market’s business and challenges at the local level and then we created this end-to-end pillar. This pillar means that we evaluate everything as either a challenge to our new product, a new methodology or a crisis.
We evaluate end-to-end by looking at the chain from our suppliers to consumers, including our manufacturing activities, packing, distribution and warehousing.
By considering everything end-to-end, we are finding better opportunities and more effective ways to make decisions for our business and consumers.
The second pillar is regionalisation. We focus on finding the balance between what is managed and evaluated at the regional level and what is managed at the global level.
This is always a challenge for global companies because it’s very easy to view things from a more global perspective or to focus on a more local perspective.
How can we find the right balance between local, regional and global?
We have a vision of what we want and we need to operate locally. However, maintaining a strong connection regionally and leveraging our local expertise alongside our global footprint becomes an enabler, not a constraint.
This brings us to the third pillar, which is global leverage. For example, I mentioned our manufacturing capabilities. We know that we have expertise in certain processes and how we take advantage of the strong processes that exist to support different markets means that global expertise becomes leverage for local and regional results.
The fourth pillar we are working on is all the procurement value-added designs for growth. We work very closely across different countries and manufacturing locations to establish standardised processes, forming strong partnerships with suppliers and other internal stakeholders. This allows us to optimise decisions and strategies.
These four pillars have been especially helpful in navigating the challenges we've faced in recent years. For example, when looking at logistical challenges, we’ve encountered transportation issues in the Black Sea and Panama Canal or strikes at some ports in the US.
When we face such logistical issues, our vision and these pillars help us make decisions in advance and manage alternative goals related to these challenges.
This is how we anticipate issues and potential crises and, ultimately, make timely decisions.
Can you provide an example of a time when you successfully established a clear operational vision for your team? How did you balance defining the 'what' and 'why' while fostering collaboration on the 'how'?
With the BIC Up methodology that we deployed globally this year across all our manufacturing sites, we are cultivating an idea-driven organisational culture.
What this means is having every team member connected with a continuous improvement mindset. It's not just about identifying ideas, but also providing a user-friendly methodology that allows employees to submit their ideas, get them approved and implement them – all within a formal recognition and reward programme.
Ultimately, the methodology behind the idea-driven organisational culture is to increase empowerment and autonomy across different functions, fostering overall collaboration and the sharing of best practices.
For example, consider a situation where a regulatory change in one country prevents us from importing specific materials on time. In such instances, the team identifies the challenge and assesses its potential impact. They then work in parallel to explore alternatives, connecting directly with other team members and stakeholders to develop solutions. Instead of focusing solely on sourcing the restricted material, the team might explore whether assembly of the required components can be sourced from other factories.
"The model is proving to be effective not only locally but also in fostering interconnectivity among different factories, enhancing overall operational efficiency and resilience."
These opportunities arise directly from the team’s sense of empowerment and autonomy, enabling them to take initiative and drive solutions.
This approach highlights how leveraging our expertise, organisational structure and operations across locations can lead to effective problem-solving and collaboration.
The methodology also fosters collaboration by establishing a process for idea submission, supported by a communication framework and a system of recognition and rewards. This creates an environment of direct communication and collaboration, eliminating bureaucratic barriers that often hinder organisations with teams spread across multiple countries. Bureaucracy can restrict direct communication by requiring teams to go through intermediaries. However, with this model, teams are empowered to communicate autonomously.
As a result, team members, who face challenges daily, are encouraged to bring forward ideas and implement solutions proactively. This spirit of ownership ensures that the best ideas come from those closest to the problems.
For example, in a recent situation, the team proposed three to four alternative solutions, all of which were activated to minimise the impact. Ultimately, this approach allowed us to mitigate the challenge entirely through the team's ideas and connections.
"Collaboration is not an event, it is a process."
When building resilient operations, how do you approach balancing global strategies and frameworks with the unique challenges of localised markets?
In the last five or six years, more than ever, due to the level of challenges we have faced across all different types of industries and companies, we have learned the importance of collaboration and resilience.
Even on a personal level, I think we face many challenges, but when we talk about collaboration and being resilient as a team, we need a structure that facilitates and creates this network.
Resilience comes from the confidence that we are not alone and that we are part of a network we can trust. The network, collaboration and communication all contribute to creating overall resilience as a team.
We have been focusing a lot on this aspect and we have developed different workflows, some of which are centred around communication. I believe we are moving away from a time when communication was dependent on specific situations, which often led to issues. Now, we are adopting the concept of regular communication.
Overall, this approach aids resilience because the teams know they can rely on each other. They know each other well, as they are in constant communication and collaboration.
In my opinion, the very foundation of resilience is having confidence that we are a team, that we are connected and that we support each other. We have established routines for communication, continuous improvement and collaboration.
This way, when something extraordinary happens, we are already working together as a team.
In your current role, what methods or practices have you found to be most effective in promoting idea generation within teams?
I’ve found that creating routines is very valuable when it comes to promoting idea generation within teams to encourage innovation and drive continuous improvement. Routine helps establish a connection where all team members are involved and the structure within organisations plays an important role.
We need good structures for many reasons, but sometimes the organisational structures can work against us, especially when we talk about innovation and connectivity. With the tools we have today, everyone should be able to contribute, bring ideas and challenge the status quo. We need innovation and opportunities that arise from harnessing the ideas and perspectives of everyone on the team.
What I find particularly valuable is how we can connect everyone’s ideas, giving everyone the confidence to bring forward ideas and challenges. In some cases, we establish routines, processes, cycles, communication or activities, but in others, it’s more about day-to-day interactions.
Last week, I was at a factory in France and I told the team that if they have an idea, challenge or question, they don’t need to follow a routine or process to communicate it; they can ask me or anyone else who is available.
Promoting open communication and demonstrating that we are ready to listen is crucial. At the heart of this is connecting ideas from everyone in real time.
There’s no need to wait for the natural bureaucracy of organisational structures, because that can stifle innovation opportunities. Innovation isn’t just about the product or process; it can be about anything.
We have an amazing opportunity because we have four generations working together, each bringing completely different experiences and a variety of tools. If we can harness ideas from these four generations and make them collaborate, we can achieve remarkable results.
But we need to be very open, as the newer generations are much more dynamic. We need to utilise digital tools now more than ever. We don't need to wait for official channels because they may be too slow for both the tools we have and the opportunities we can explore.
With our BIC Up methodology, we’ve created a social media environment where everyone can share ideas, connect, implement and manage them. We also have a friendly system where everyone participates, which is exactly what we’re striving for and, so far, it’s working very well.
We began the model in our manufacturing plant in Manaus, Brazil, in 2019 and, after four years of testing and fine-tuning, we began global deployment. Initially, some of our factories were concerned about the feasibility of managing a larger volume of ideas.
However, the success of our model relies on the autonomy and empowerment of our teams, enabling them to be agile, especially considering that the younger generations of team members already have a mindset focused on direct communication and agility.
"We are moving forward and it's amazing what we are learning about ideas, communication and collaboration."
How have you utilised collaboration networks to enhance operational efficiency and engage employees?
Often, what we lack in an organisation is engagement.
How can we create an environment where team members feel not only confident but also engaged enough to highlight opportunities or situations where everything is interconnected? The main goal of the BIC Up culture is not only to establish the conditions for idea generation and implementation but also to reinforce communication, collaboration and recognition, thereby creating engagement by demonstrating how the contributions of team members can become a reality.
Team members should be able to see that they are not only encouraged to participate by sharing ideas but also to take part in their implementation. They can witness how their ideas evolve into tangible outcomes. For example, at our factory in Athens, we implemented a very effective system and saw great results. We had our team members from Athens share their experiences with colleagues in our factories in Mexico and France, where similar opportunities existed. We connected the teams and they began collaborating and sharing ideas, which has now led to direct improvement.
This sharing of best practices not only drives results but also fosters a sense of pride among team members. Seeing that ideas can become a reality and having the opportunity to connect with colleagues from other countries enhances engagement. Engagement comes in many forms and all of these activities contribute to its growth. Essentially, engagement becomes the foundation for everything else, creating a cycle where engagement improves communication and collaboration, which, in turn, further strengthens engagement.
What are you most looking forward to about the 11th annual American Manufacturing Summit?
The opportunity to share the experiences that we had with this methodology with colleagues from other companies and also being able to connect with others and establish this network of collaboration and sharing in both directions.
There are many things that we can learn from other companies, so we will be able to collaborate.
It's a strong opportunity for our company to strengthen its network within this ecosystem of companies. Additionally, how we can continue improving all together while following the best practice assurance.
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