Dan Zonnenschein: Hi, Néstor! Thank you for joining us for A Cup of Coffee With… How did you start your career and your journey in Aerodoc?
Néstor Medina: I have a degree in Business Administration and majored in Business Development. I began my career as an intern in college, in specialized heavy industry, more specifically military aviation. My first job was at my native Córdoba’s Aircraft Factory. Back then I was also an English Assistant Teacher for the Argentinian Air Force; I taught English lessons for the military personnel deployed with the UN’s Blue Helmets.
Sometime later, I travelled for work to United Arab Emirates, also as a Business Development Manager. During my stint there, thanks to my company’s work methodology, which involved forming multidisciplinary teams, I got into closer contact with logistics, but always focusing on spare parts and commodities.
DZ: Where do you feel that Aerodoc’s company values intersect with your own?
NM: I have always been a true believer in teamwork. I firmly believe you can get a lot of synergies with a well-built, consistent team. That’s one of Aerodoc greatest differentiators – its human group, especially as a GROUP. While our job does not have high exposure, it is visible through its results. Getting the different areas to interact with each other focuses the entire organization on customers.
DZ: In your experience, do you see any new challenges regarding customers?
NM: Thanks to technological progress, we can now add tracking devices to provide our customers a more detailed follow-up. This forces Aerodoc to maintain high quality standards to minimize mistakes or operational issues. I believe that the markets we are in and those we want to enter into have become much more demanding than a few years ago, before this information boom.
DZ: Have you felt at some point that the aftermath of the pandemic has had an impact on this?
NM: I believe that we have not fully quantified the aftermath of the pandemic or understood its true long-term impact yet. Organizations are adapting to new realities such as hybrid work and the increased importance of our assets’ mental health. Nevertheless, I think that broadly speaking, several changes are underway. For example, the market needs increasingly competitive prices and is forcing businesses to become far more efficient than before the pandemic.
DZ: Are you seeing any incoming trends in logistics?
NM: Undoubtedly. In this time of quick messaging and e-mails, we no longer read between the lines – we are not paying attention to things like a person’s voice tone and body language. In this context, customizing our interactions with customers can be a big plus. Conversations are essential, as you can really feel how customers are doing, their needs, and specially, what they expect from our work.
This is not a mere detail. We must regard our work as a global reach that leads us to a multicultural environment; other communication methods (e-mails, messaging, etc.) may be effective, but they often lead us to overlook what’s important for us: trying to understand the customer’s needs and desires to satisfy them.
DZ: Have you seen anything like that in Aerodoc?
NM: I believe that seeing customers as partners makes Aerodoc stand out. Although customs regulations are getting stricter, especially in Latin America, we are always on the lookout for the best-suited solutions for our customers’ needs, always trying to be as efficient as possible.
DZ: Thank you for joining us, Néstor. Finally, tell us a bit about yourself. What do you like doing? Who do you admire?
NM: I like cinema. I’m a Gen-Xer. Star Wars is one of my favorite movies, but my guilty pleasure is Casablanca. Since I always wanted to be a physicist, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison are two heroes for me; I’m such an Edison fan that I also restore phonographs. I have always found the early 20th century fascinating.
