Sintetica SA is known for Fostering Human-Centered Approach as its Working Model

Founded in 1921, Sintetica SA, a pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland is a hospital market leader for analgesics and local anesthetics with offices located in Germany, Italy, England, and two national production and development sites in Mendrisio and Couvet. The company is known for delivering injectable anesthetics and analgesics to patients worldwide, through innovative science and excellence in development, production, and marketing.

Sintetica believes that its people are the biggest asset. Its work culture promotes creativity, informed risk-taking, and an exciting environment in everyday work. The implementation of the strategic plan “2015 World” reinforced its leadership, bringing Sintetica SA to international markets and giving it an appropriate technological/organizational structure in order to pursue its goals. The new strategic five-year plan called “2021 Strategy” has drawn up clear guidelines to develop the company, was approved by the Board of Directors.

Leading its way towards “Human-centered” organization

The “human-centered” organization model, based on a deep cultural change, is already underway in Sintetica. The company’s environment, dynamic and highly innovative in terms of ideas, projects, products, and operational/management solutions, must be in line with an approach based on increasing people’s sense of responsibility with regard to clear objectives, by exercising greater delegation, and autonomy in the management of their duties. Managers, therefore, shall move from a role of command and control to a more coaching one, in order to manage people, enhance talents, through delegation and accountability for results, and to reward their merit.

Prerequisites (characteristics of the “human-centric” leader)

Passion is the most important prerequisites; in fact, without it, any role performed within a company would purely be a formal exercise. Managers shall act as a driving force to transmit the organization’s values. It is essential to build the culture based on results’ measurement of the team and every resource involved in it, as well as merit. Skills and knowledge shall be widespread and placed at the base of the delegation and autonomy process; they must be sought, valued, and rewarded in every collaborator. The last essential element is smiling.

Peripheral Decisional Autonomy (to be a leader at all level)

Managers shall use active listening techniques. To exercise the “managerial” delegation, one needs to leverage the strategic idea of growth, based on the international diffusion of innovation and corporate culture, which is hinged on the centrality of the individual and respect. Managers and talents, which are the real protagonists of this change, are following an endless path of high-level training.

Talents’ Selection and Development

The choice of new collaborators and the possible replacement/repositioning of those no longer consistent with the new model is decisive in this type of scenario. New job descriptions put the emphasis on responsibility and result orientation. Strategic partnership with specialized head-hunters is an effective tool for the talents acquisition process.

Responsibility and Merit

It is clear that in such a dynamic scenario, people will grow by merit. The merit must be recognized at all levels with feedbacks (on work) and rewards (recognition of merit). The merit of each manager is the “enriched” sum of the success of every single member of his team. The conscious use of the feedback tool is fundamental in order to improve in a clear and honest way.

The IMR Model of Strategy-Operations Management

The company’s dynamic, innovative, and growth-oriented corporate environment requires deep focus in order to build a management model able to be “dynamic and innovative” and to help the company in the difficult task of balancing its strategy with operations. Inter-functional Management Routines (IMR) will be created, which consists of groups of people whose level of responsibility is not necessarily homogeneous. It comes from heterogeneous functions, which are being able to harmonize operations with the strategy in the hinge sectors for the development and growth of Sintetica. The expected result
while rebuilding strategy and operations is maximum agility.

The identified Routines, cornerstones of the new management model, are the following:
IMR Innovation Pipeline: Its purpose is to target, coordinate, and monitor drugs development and critical records and their impact in terms of expense/investment.
IMR Infrastructure for Growth: Its purpose is to target, coordinate, and monitor industry developments and major investments and their impact in terms of expense/investment.
IMR “human-centered” Organization: It is built to address sustainability and human resources development policies, to define high-level targets and to monitor progress in macro-projects.
IMR Digital Transformation: It helps to direct, coordinate, and monitor the identification of new business processes. It also helps in the implementation of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) with related expense and investment plans.

IMR World Markets: Its purpose is to direct, coordinate, and monitor international divisions and broad strategic marketing projects.

IMR from Control to Integrated Management: It helps to address and guide the integral process of forecasting, budgeting, controlling, and action.

Meet the Leader

Augusto Mitidieri, CEO: Augusto Mitidieri started his work in the pharmaceutical industry as a Project Manager for the Engineering Division of Bioren SA, (Bigmar Group) in Couvet (NE). He went on to become Production & Logistics Manager of Bigmar Pharmaceuticals SA in Barbengo (TI).

In 2000, Augusto joined Sintetica SA, Mendrisio (TI), as Production & Engineering Manager. In Sintetica, he also worked as Quality Assurance Manager, before becoming General Manager of the Company in 2004. Since 2011, Augusto has held the position of Corporate CEO of the Sintetica Group. Under his guidance, Sintetica SA, the oldest pharmaceutical company in Ticino, has undergone a period of extraordinary growth and entered international markets with its high-quality products in the sector of local anesthesia and pain therapy.

He has graduated in Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano; he also obtained a CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies) in Economics and Health Policy at the University of Lausanne.

“A characteristic of our DNA is the research for the quality without compromises, which is measured, first of all, by enjoying togetherness. A true smile is contagious and is the identity of Sintetica.”