An industrial engineer started helping designers to export. Due to DINKA’s intervention, provides comprehensive advice to medium and small companies and startups that could not hire a specialist for each need. mutual commitment.

iEco Supplement – 16 march 2014

Industrial Engineer from the University of Buenos Aires, Sandra Felsenstein always knew that she “wasn’t cut out” to work at a desk and stick to a schedule. He checked it out when he graduated and he did. But her experience doing various consulting jobs led her to detect a niche in which she could emancipate herself as a worker.: help Argentine designers to market their products abroad.

A) Yes, on 2005, Dinka was born (Argentine Contemporary Designs), that represented and marketed Argentine design products abroad, creating tools to take advantage of the synergies between quality local production and economies of scale. But over the years, glimpsed that it had much more to offer entrepreneurs and SMEs.

“They had other shortcomings beyond export; and they gave me the encouragement that they commit themselves much more than large companies when they decide to hire a consultancy, which for them is a great move”, dice Felsenstein.

It was so, toward 2010, Dinka had already become –incorporation of specialists through– a consultancy for SMEs and entrepreneurs to whom it provides services in relation to start-up projects, commercial management and optimization of resources.

The firm divides the projects on which it works into three large groups. First of all, family businesses and large SMEs that need to restructure, reduce costs or reengineer processes. “It happens a lot to family members that things are always done the same, from generation to generation, as if by inertia; and they need to stop the ball to do analysis”, comenta Felsenstein.

Secondly, smaller SMEs tend to focus on sales or, rather, see how to earn more money, which sometimes implies growing in sales but, sometimes, It implies being more efficient and better managing the contact base”, indicates the entrepreneur. “Or they don't know why they're stuck in sales; they may not have a significant client portfolio or they may need to activate it through commercial strategies and actions”.

Finally, a very important group for Dinka is made up of the entrepreneurs themselves, to propose the start-up of a company. “In general their difficulty is that they trust their idea, but they need a help in the first instance: to do market research, see what added value to give to the project, put together the business plan and put it into action”, enumera Felsenstein.

Sometimes it happens that different needs are articulated in the same client: for example, an SME may need cost reduction and attention to business management. “But SMEs cannot hire several consultants to advise them; and in general those on the market are dedicated to a single specialty: or management, or process reengineering”, evaluate the entrepreneur.

Dinka, instead, by consolidating itself as a consulting firm for SMEs, tried to provide a comprehensive solution, for which he called in specialists: to Cecilia Brizuela, for entrepreneurship and Juliana Cavalieri, more focused on startups. Felsenstein deals with commercial management and is now about to add another specialist.

The modality is to establish a working time with the client to reach a goal (five months is a reasonable period, although after two months you can already see results; and some continue until a year and a half). Usually, meetings are held once a week at the client's office, to analyze and define strategies and steps to follow. Then, both he and the consultant take "homework". “There has to be an internal process of the company; because if one settles there and generates everything, When the project ends, the company works the same as before”, subraya Felsenstein.

Feedback externo

Does this girl think she knows more about my business than I do?? Sandra Felsenstein was never asked point blank, but it was often evident to him that his interlocutor was thinking in those terms. “Of course you never know more about your business than he does”, answer back. “One comes with an external gaze, objective and fresh; and with the experience of having embodied certain types of solutions successfully in other areas. And the client introduces it as they work together. The entrepreneurs, in particular, they fall in love with their idea, and that's great; but, for that reason, they are usually so biased that they need the external gaze that makes them think about aspects that were not raised”.

Links of the news:

https://www.ieco.clarin.com/economia/Consultora-integral-pymes_0_1102690088.html

https://www.ieco.clarin.com/economia/Feedback-externo_0_1102690086.html