Mercados 21 interview with Álvaro Barea

In Hidral, when we talk about the innovation process we refer to a cultural change that covers many aspects in the company. Innovation or the creation of innovative products are the consequence of this change in the way of working that is now "natural" in Hidral.

A change of culture is not quick, it happens like with plants, it is a seed that, based in constancy and coherence grows and ends up flooding all the space you leave it.

In order to generate this cultural change toward innovation in the whole company, it has been vital that, from the management and middle management, the new ways of working have been introduced and a new model in which "failures" are only lessons learned and bring us one step closer to success in a different project than the one we were working on.

It is important that the leaders take these changes as their own so that the rest of the team assumes them and internalizes them in their day-to-day work. The process is like an oil stain that spreads and in which at all times there lust be consistency between what is said and done, and the constancy of a good gardener. The result, the innovation, will be the flower, but it is nothing more than a consequence of everything that has happened before.

What role does it play in strengthening your differential offer in the sector?

In the company, we want to continue to be a reference in the sector both for the product and for the service. We need to provide it with the ability to adapt to the environment and this is not possible if the company's culture is not agile and assumes change as something natural.

In the past, times were stable, you had a product or service that was valid for years. You kept your proposal and your differential for a while. Today, everything changes rapidly and making future projections with such an ambiguous situation is like playing the lottery.

What we intend by promoting the culture of innovation at Hidral is to get our team to be perfectly prepared to embrace any change that comes our way in the shortest possible time and with the best possible result. In this way, we will be able to offer our best version as a company, regardless of external circumstances.

Here, you can read the complete interview with Mercados 21.