Resilienza, sostenibilità e innovazione: il caso Bridgestone

I'm Emilio Tiberio, 50 years old, and at the moment I hold the position of CEO and CTO of Bridgestone. So I am responsible for the entire operations part, the plants we have in the region. I look after Russia, India, Europe, and Africa. In total, about 15 plants. I'm responsible for all logistics for the territory, and then also the procurement part. So this is the Chief Operating Officer part.

Here instead is the Chief Technology Officer part, and here I am responsible for product development — the research and development for the portfolio we serve in our region. So we develop from the technical center in Rome, substantially tires for cars, both for the original equipment and the replacement market. Then we have trucks, buses, and the institutional part — regulation matters — and finally everything related to safety. So this is our organization in Bridgestone.

So I've had a long career at Bridgestone. I've been in the company 22 years, having come from the United States. I got to know Bridgestone because I did a post-graduation master's program at the University of Pennsylvania, and in my master's thesis I studied from an analytical point of view the behavior of an elastomeric matrix with rigid fillers, which is essentially the basis of a tire. So a long career at Bridgestone.

Look, Bridgestone has always remained faithful to its mission statement: 'Serving Society with Superior Quality.' So it's a company at the service of society, understood in the broadest sense — the social role of society — and clearly today the whole theme of the environment and sustainability. And then there's the second part of the mission statement, which is about superior quality — the pursuit of excellence in everything it does, both from the point of view of products and solutions it develops.

And this is the further transformation the company has begun — moving from a company that produces and sells objects to a company in the field of solutions, in the world of services around the theme of tires and more generally mobility.

First of all, let me preface by saying that a tire is a high-engineering element. This may not be perceived by the end user, but behind the development of a tire there are roughly two years of research and development. Behind new lines, for some topics there can even be decade-long development programs. Bridgestone considers sustainability truly embedded from raw materials and procurement all the way to end-of-life disposal of the tire — the use phase, end of life, and then the subsequent reuse or recycling, a concept of practical circular economy.

So starting very far upstream, Bridgestone is part of platforms for sustainably producing natural rubber. If we think about the entire production process in Europe, Bridgestone already uses energy in all our plants that comes 100% from renewable sources. And we have set ourselves a very stringent global objective: by 2030 to cut our CO2 emissions by 50%, and by 2050 to be carbon neutral. It's an ambitious and important objective, in line with the industrial policy this government also wants to pursue.

Looking to the future, it's clear that technology will be a predominant element. We have complex challenges, including CO2 reduction that we mentioned. Technology will provide the solution to these great challenges. So I'd say the technological field, beyond engineering, will clearly have an important weight in the coming years. I have a very important vantage point as CTO, and I'm actually part of the global executive technology committee. We always have open discussions about what competencies are needed for the future — the skills our people must have going forward. Clearly there are competencies in materials, big data analytics, and so on. The way of working is changing a lot, and there is an evolution in the direction of digitalization.

We had three phases. The first phase was the emergency one — what do we do? Since we have part of our activities that take place in offices, but most of it, as I said before, we have 15 plants, so it must necessarily be done in person. From this point of view, the emergency concerned all aspects related to distancing, masks, and for example sanitization. We were very strict about this, and we built our own ecosystem. So to date, Bridgestone produces its own masks. We have our own internal production of disinfectant hand gel, so we are absolutely free from any supply problems.

The second phase was putting people in a position to work remotely — everything related to office work. We already had a smart working policy. The third phase is the reopening. So now, clearly always in line with whatever government directives there are, the idea is to return in shifts, so as to create a separation so that if within a group an outbreak occurs or a positive case is verified, the other two groups are still independent and can continue. This is the system also for the future, for the coming months, hoping that we won't have to talk about this anymore.

The result was negative at a global level, as the pandemic caused a strong contraction in the market at a global level. And we see these contractions continuing, as I mentioned previously, including in India and in our region. India in particular has experienced with the second or third wave their worst crisis, reaching up to 400,000 cases per day.

We continue to hire. The technical center has never stopped hiring, because we have projects, we are expanding both in terms of portfolio and at the same time we need new competencies. So today we have data scientists, a role that until a few years ago didn't even exist. We've also invested in telematics technology with the acquisition of the TomTom Telematics part, which clearly gives a strong boost to the entire digital solutions area, predictive models. I'm proud that our engineers here in Rome collaborated with the engineers in Redmond at Microsoft — we were the first manufacturing company to have our predictive maintenance models in Microsoft Azure.

We say the tire will always be there, in the sense that the best coupling between the vehicle and the road is a contact mediated through the tread, which generates the best hysteresis, the maximum grip that can be generated with the road. So a tire that touches the road will always be there. Clearly it may come in different forms. Today we have tires with air inside. We are also considering airless tires.

Both dynamics exist. Let's say that in Italy the majority of purchases are mediated — they happen through trusted retailers. However, there are also specialized magazines that are becoming increasingly numerous, and especially in countries like Germany, these carry a lot of weight and direct consumers through extensive test campaigns.

No, social media is an excellent channel for having contact with our users. We have a concept in the company called customer centricity. For us, it's important to have contact with the end user of our product and understand what they seek from the product — what characteristics they appreciate and which ones they could do without — so that we have a product designed as much as possible around the end user's needs, and at the same time communicate the innovative characteristics of our product. In reality, the tire is the only element that constitutes the link between the road and the car, so it is first and foremost a safety device.

Sure, sure. Let's say the passion is there, it's that kind of passion. So we always watch all motorsport events with great enthusiasm.

It's going to happen together with all of us in Tokyo. We have our headquarters there, so we are 100% focused on this event. It will be fundamental — it will really be the true sign that something is recovering in the world. It's very important that once the Olympics start — we hope they do.

Thank you, Chi. I thank you. Have a good day.