#8 Engineering Across Cultures – Bhavesh Mistry on Global Growth, Ropes and Systems Thinking

00:00:00: Welcome to lifts and leaders, the podcast by interlift.

00:00:04: and yeah, it's that podcast that connects people, innovation and ideas shaping the future of vertical mobility.

00:00:13: And my guest today is someone who has lived and worked across continents.

00:00:19: He speaks multiple languages.

00:00:22: He brings a deep understanding of how culture, communication, technology come together and to make that business thrive.

00:00:31: So yeah, let's get him to know better.

00:00:35: I'm really curious and really happy.

00:00:37: Please welcome to this podcast, Bavesh Mistry, Chief Sales and Revenue Officer and Deputy CEO at Brug.

00:00:47: Lifting.

00:00:47: Hi, Babes, how are you?

00:00:49: Hi, Dennis.

00:00:50: Thanks for having me here.

00:00:51: And thank you for that wonderful introduction.

00:00:53: I hope I can live up to the expectations.

00:00:55: I'm sure you will.

00:00:57: Yeah, Babes, start with the beginning.

00:01:01: I think if I did my homework correct, you work for Brook for more than fourteen years.

00:01:07: Yeah, that's correct.

00:01:08: Right now.

00:01:08: So this is a big part of your professional life.

00:01:11: But of course, it began earlier.

00:01:14: So just give us.

00:01:17: Yeah, give us a short overview how you started, how you came into that elevator industry and yeah, why are you here?

00:01:25: Right, sure.

00:01:26: Yeah, I hope I can hold myself to a reasonable length.

00:01:30: The story is a little bit complicated, but I was born in the UK.

00:01:33: I think

00:01:33: it's interesting.

00:01:34: Yeah, it's interesting.

00:01:36: Yeah, so I was born in the UK and I studied as an engineer, mechanical systems engineering and basically I started my journey in a company making firefighting cameras, which is quite curious because I'm a firefighter now in Switzerland.

00:01:52: So I was making firefighting cameras as a project manager.

00:01:55: And then about four years in, I remember I had a conversation with a boss of mine, and he said to me, Babes, you're a very good project manager.

00:02:01: We really like you.

00:02:02: But he took me ten years to get here.

00:02:04: And it's going to take you another ten years to move along.

00:02:07: And for me, I felt a little bit disappointed by this answer.

00:02:11: And I thought, you know what?

00:02:13: I'm going to look around.

00:02:13: I'm going to find something.

00:02:14: else to do.

00:02:15: So then I went traveling for six months, went back to Africa and because my parents are actually born in Africa and traveled around there and then I came back and I was talking to a supplier of mine and the supplier said, would you like to go to China?

00:02:29: And this was just when Skype and everything was kind of coming along.

00:02:32: I thought, yeah, great.

00:02:33: I'll go to China.

00:02:35: So I ended up in China and I was running a very small business.

00:02:38: It was like one other guy, a local Chinese guy and myself who was just fresh from traveling the world.

00:02:46: And essentially we were doing buying... buying parts in China from multiple suppliers.

00:02:54: So my background was then like as a mechanical engineer, but now I was sourcing.

00:02:59: I was buying parts.

00:03:00: So we bought mechanical parts.

00:03:01: We bought electrical parts.

00:03:03: We bought moldings.

00:03:05: And it was just such a great experience to be in China from two thousand and seven at this time when China was really coming into the world.

00:03:13: And I learned to speak Chinese.

00:03:16: Yeah, it's like we're in a conversation in the first.

00:03:21: Month I was there and I asked a question and I remember an entire conversation happening.

00:03:25: and then they turned around to me and went, yes.

00:03:29: I missed something there and it just really promoted pushed me actually to learn Chinese.

00:03:35: So yeah, I worked at this company for about four and a half years and then finally I sort of decided to move on and brook lifting was starting a factory in China at this time and for yeah, no good deed goes unpunished and somehow I was like taken in to be the general manager at the young age of twenty seven and Basic this factory.

00:03:56: we had one machine.

00:03:57: I came in, we had a very young team.

00:04:00: And again, it was like learning from the ground up, the elevator industry ropes.

00:04:05: I mean, when I came into the ropes industry for elevator ropes, I thought, hmm, how difficult can it be?

00:04:10: It's just a bit of steel.

00:04:11: And here I am, fourteen years later.

00:04:13: So, yeah, I worked at this factory.

00:04:15: I built it up over four and a half years.

00:04:19: And then Bruglifting Switzerland asked me to move to Switzerland to become the sales manager for our... organisation in two thousand fifteen.

00:04:28: and then from two thousand fifteen till today I've been living working in Switzerland as a head of sales.

00:04:36: the title you know.

00:04:36: everyone has to be a chief.

00:04:37: so I'm chief revenue and growth officer but it's actually a head of sales position.

00:04:42: and then yeah over the time I've sort of been rewarded and the companies put some faith in me and allowed me to become deputy CEO as well.

00:04:51: so I have kind of a dual position.

00:04:53: wow wow so interesting.

00:04:56: So how long did it take until you learned Chinese?

00:05:00: So yeah, I would say two and a half years.

00:05:02: Wow, okay.

00:05:04: I had a great teacher.

00:05:05: She's still a friend today and she's living in Spain now, so in Bilbao.

00:05:09: But she was she was a great teacher.

00:05:11: She was somebody who really sort of pushed me to learn.

00:05:14: And in the end, I never really learned Chinese characters.

00:05:20: That's quite complicated.

00:05:21: Well, it was

00:05:22: I was coming along and it's like you have to memorize the pictograms.

00:05:25: I can draw any Chinese character because she taught me exactly how you draw the characters.

00:05:29: But I can't really read them anymore.

00:05:31: And my kids came along at that time.

00:05:33: And so I'm a father of two daughters.

00:05:35: And at that time, it's like you got young babies and, you know, learning goes a little bit out the window.

00:05:39: But speaking was not too difficult for Chinese because I like to talk.

00:05:44: And even though at school, I was terrible.

00:05:46: I think the key was speak.

00:05:48: If you want to learn a language.

00:05:49: speak it and if you don't know the sentence structures just substitute the language you do know.

00:05:54: and then somehow I managed to sort of model my way through.

00:05:57: and then I was doing business meetings in Chinese I was meeting government officials I was giving presentations in Chinese and then I had to come to Switzerland.

00:06:09: I moved to Switzerland.

00:06:10: And then somehow German was not so difficult.

00:06:14: And even the Swiss language, the Spitzer Deutsch is completely different.

00:06:20: Well, what's

00:06:20: interesting is in China, it's like we say Chinese, but it's a huge country, right?

00:06:24: Yeah.

00:06:25: And each city actually has different dialects.

00:06:27: Yeah.

00:06:28: And some of them are really difficult to understand.

00:06:31: And some of them are sort of completely impossible.

00:06:33: If you're speaking Mandarin, and for example, you're in Suzhou, which is where Brooklifting was based.

00:06:38: where we had our factory, they start speaking Suzhou-Hua.

00:06:41: It's like, you know, it's like OK in Chinese, it's Hode.

00:06:45: And in Suzhou-Hua, it's Haga Haga.

00:06:48: And then you can imagine that the language changes so much.

00:06:51: And then when I came to Switzerland and you've got High German and Swiss German, I was like, this is easy.

00:06:56: I understand what they're saying.

00:06:57: OK, OK.

00:06:59: And

00:06:59: how did you say in Chinese, I take a lift?

00:07:03: Oh, I'm walking in the lift industry.

00:07:05: Um, so, uh, wuzhou gongzou is like a D&T.

00:07:08: D&T.

00:07:09: Inside the D&T, the Hangye.

00:07:10: The

00:07:11: D&T.

00:07:11: Yeah, D&T.

00:07:12: Okay.

00:07:12: So D&N is, uh, electricity and T, if I remember correctly, is to move.

00:07:17: To move.

00:07:18: Yeah.

00:07:19: Oh, okay.

00:07:19: So

00:07:20: it's like, oh, my Chinese colleagues are probably like, uh, quite distressed right now.

00:07:25: But D&N I know is electricity.

00:07:27: Yeah, because I saw in Japanese, they just imitated the word... elevator, it's aerobata, aerobata in Japan.

00:07:39: Yeah, in Switzerland, it's the same, lift-aufzug fahren.

00:07:43: And then we have the elevator, we have the lifts, and we have the different words from the Scandinavian language.

00:07:49: It's his,

00:07:50: his, his

00:07:51: and thys and his, hissy.

00:07:54: Yeah, it's really fascinating, the different languages.

00:07:56: How many languages do you speak?

00:07:58: So

00:07:58: I would say three.

00:07:59: English, Chinese, another Chinese dialect.

00:08:02: German,

00:08:03: Chinese.

00:08:04: My home language is Gujarati, which is a language from the north part of India.

00:08:09: So I understand bits.

00:08:11: when I go home and I'm with family, I start speaking a little bit.

00:08:15: But I wouldn't say I'm sort of proficient.

00:08:18: But I think if I went to India and I think I'd pick it up again.

00:08:23: And Hindi, I understand a little bit as well.

00:08:27: I think it helps when you want, you like to talk.

00:08:30: Yeah.

00:08:31: So you really, you're really working with teams and customers all over the world.

00:08:38: You have those cross-cultural experiences and that shaped the way you're leading and communicate and how.

00:08:47: Yeah, I mean I think it helps to be sort of of a child of the British Empire.

00:08:52: I guess so I'm.

00:08:53: you know, I'm British.

00:08:54: I was born in England my parents were born in East Africa and then but they were their grandparents are actually born in India.

00:09:00: So it's like we're sort of nation of well a family of people who moved around the world And I think we absorbed quite a few cultures.

00:09:08: that was sort of within the family itself and then being sort of of Indian descent in the UK I mean, I experienced racism as like as a kid.

00:09:17: It was like, you know, we were in a sort of a town outside of London.

00:09:22: Not so many people that look like me.

00:09:24: But you learn to sort of take the best for both.

00:09:28: My father always told me, because you know what?

00:09:30: You have so much luck.

00:09:32: You have this rich cultural history.

00:09:35: But you're also in this modern sort of European culture to take the best of everything.

00:09:40: And that was kind of drilled in.

00:09:42: And I think that's from childhood.

00:09:43: I've always taken that.

00:09:45: You know, it's tried to be the best person and learn from all the different cultures that we have around and it helped to go to China because you could understand somewhat of what's That culture because it's not too far away from Indian culture.

00:10:00: It's got its own flavor, but it's like it's it was.

00:10:05: Yeah, I would say similar enough.

00:10:09: It had some key values.

00:10:11: that kind of were also in Indian culture as well.

00:10:15: So I mean, it's allowed me to sort of triangulate and be able to communicate across cultural barriers.

00:10:23: So I suppose if you can do India, China and the UK, and then also Europe, then yeah, pretty much you can cover most of the world.

00:10:30: Yeah,

00:10:30: absolutely.

00:10:31: Cool.

00:10:32: So I think I've just, I've had a bit of luck.

00:10:36: Vavesh, Bruck has a very long tradition.

00:10:39: I think they exist for more than one hundred years.

00:10:42: One hundred and twenty years.

00:10:43: One hundred

00:10:43: and twenty.

00:10:44: Wow.

00:10:44: Amazing.

00:10:45: Okay.

00:10:46: So what makes this company so strong after such a long time in business?

00:10:50: Yeah, I think it's, Bruck, I think we, we have a lot of benefits from our Swiss heritage.

00:10:59: It's like you have this federal structure in Switzerland, this deep democracy.

00:11:03: And I think the strengths of the BRUG group are that we have a lot of diversified business units.

00:11:09: So it came out of the cable industry and then moved into wire ropes.

00:11:12: And then we have sort of safety nets.

00:11:15: We have a pipes division, which does district heating pipes.

00:11:18: And then we also have control systems in our group Rittmeier.

00:11:23: And sort of from this sort of level, I think the BRUG group over the hundred years had quite a broad base.

00:11:30: and because it had a broad base sometimes certain business segments were doing well others were not doing so well and that kind of supported the growth on a commercial level.

00:11:42: On a sort of people level I would say the brew group has a strength because it's a company of engineers run by engineers Naturally Swiss.

00:11:52: so there is a strong commercial focus, but it's about innovation.

00:11:56: It's about products.

00:11:57: It's about How we interact with our customers, you know, we don't.

00:12:02: I really love the fact that it's like within the group.

00:12:05: We don't just treat customers as like Resources to exploit for our own benefit.

00:12:10: We talk about partnerships, you know.

00:12:11: It's like for example with the many companies here in the lift industry.

00:12:14: We've been working with them for over like seventy years and there's something very human in that and there's something very Yeah, there's something special there that you know.

00:12:25: you are there on a journey together and Also with our competitors.

00:12:29: They're also long long times here, but we're not here to kill each other You know, it's like we're all in this industry together.

00:12:35: We're all progressing and you know our journey is our journey and I think you know brook really sort of embodies that in its spirit and I would say it's like I've been in the company fourteen years And I sound like an advert for Brookes, sorry.

00:12:49: But it's like I really enjoy this company.

00:12:51: It's like I really identify with this company because we're constantly pushing, re-innovating ourselves and moving forwards.

00:12:57: But not in a way that is... artificial or like.

00:13:02: it's just very authentic.

00:13:03: It's like the people are the company and we've got great people in our company.

00:13:09: So you see there's no barrier or difficult to balance between that Swiss precision and that international flexibility.

00:13:18: or yeah.

00:13:19: Yeah, I mean this is a challenge and we've been on our journey as well.

00:13:25: In the past when I first joined the company I would say in China I was kind of a little bit left alone.

00:13:30: so I could sort of together with the my colleagues there really sort of build out the company.

00:13:36: and but from the ground up and we didn't have the resources at the time from headquarters to be controlling everything.

00:13:43: And then I joined the Swiss organization in two thousand fifteen which is quite a different organization then and we had quite a lot of problems with sort of intercultural connectivity.

00:13:56: but we had a Japanese sort of sales guy we had somebody from Hong Kong and I think Yeah, I mean, I don't want to brag, but I feel that I brought a new element to that.

00:14:07: And within the company, we actually have a massively international team now.

00:14:12: And in the past, we used to have three different organizations.

00:14:14: We had China, we had USA, we had Switzerland.

00:14:17: And over the years, we've learned that like... Our strength is together and we really have a global team now and this intercultural competence is fantastic.

00:14:27: I mean when we we asked ourselves when are we at our best?

00:14:30: and there was.

00:14:31: we were working with a key OEM and we had this project and it was brilliant.

00:14:34: We had the Chinese talking with the Americans who were like pulling in people from Switzerland and that's how we live it today and it's just like this.

00:14:42: intercultural connectivity has really been one of the most sort of satisfying things I found.

00:14:48: but we had our challenges as well.

00:14:50: When we first started working with some Japanese customers, for example, they ask a lot of questions.

00:14:56: And there was, I would say, European arrogance in our organization of, like, why are they asking these questions?

00:15:04: And you know what?

00:15:04: As we went along, we found, hey, these were really valid questions.

00:15:07: And we changed our mindset from, that's a silly question, we know it all, to, how can we figure this out together?

00:15:14: Come, let's work together.

00:15:16: No, I don't know.

00:15:17: Do you know?

00:15:18: No.

00:15:19: Let's figure this out together.

00:15:20: And this idea of partnership and working together and humble, being humble.

00:15:24: There's a book called Humble Inquiry that makes arounds in our organization.

00:15:29: That really sort of brought us forward.

00:15:32: And I think this mindset is, yeah, it's something that really makes me want to work at Brooklifting.

00:15:38: And what would you say?

00:15:39: What regions or countries are really important for the innovation?

00:15:46: pace.

00:15:47: What brings the most innovation is that, I mean, in the top ten Switzerland is always on place one or two in most innovative countries worldwide.

00:15:56: But I would say Asia, China is also really pacing up.

00:16:02: So what would you say, which of these cultures brings the most innovation pace in that industry?

00:16:09: Within our organization.

00:16:13: Within Brug, I would say, so I can only talk about lifting.

00:16:16: That's where I have my experience.

00:16:20: We have our American colleagues who push a lot.

00:16:25: And they have great ideas, and they push.

00:16:28: But on the Swiss side, we have our precision.

00:16:34: and our ability to sort of say, hey, we don't need to be the first, but if we do it, let's do it properly, because we don't need to be bleeding edge innovators, but we try to be the second movers where we look around, we assess, and then we do it, let's say, properly.

00:16:50: So the Americans, our American colleagues push us quite well.

00:16:53: The Chinese bring the pace.

00:16:55: I mean, I always say, just like after my experience in China, the Chinese really move very, very quickly.

00:17:02: And sometimes it's like maybe not done quite as exact as it should be.

00:17:08: And I think this blend that we have is really something that brings benefits for all parties.

00:17:13: And also with this mindset shift that we've had in the organization over the years, we're really... Profiting from one another and recently we've put in two people in India and we will be opening up our own factory in India in the coming years.

00:17:27: I think next year hopefully We will have a factory on the ground in India and that brings another dimension.

00:17:33: You know, it's like the the complexity.

00:17:36: the complexity of India is something but also we're bringing in a lot of mathematical STEM knowledge as well and that really sort of this mix is very cool.

00:17:48: Yeah, we also have our Japanese colleagues as well, and that brings an ability to work with Asian cultures throughout the region.

00:17:54: So, yeah, it's a good mix, I'd say that way.

00:18:00: Which technologies do you believe will really shape the Lyft industry in the next decade?

00:18:05: Is it digitalization, sustainability, or maybe entirely new business models?

00:18:12: I think it's a little bit all of the above.

00:18:15: We did an exercise in our strategy sessions where we asked ourselves, what was the lift industry like forty years ago?

00:18:21: Where are we today?

00:18:22: And where will it be in forty years?

00:18:24: And humans don't necessarily change shape or form.

00:18:27: So a lift will be a lift pretty much in forty years time.

00:18:32: Because if you look back forty years ago, an elevator generally did not change that much.

00:18:38: So I think in form and function, We don't see too much changes, but I think it's like, how do you package that up?

00:18:45: What are the services that come with it?

00:18:48: How can you make it easier to sort of install a lift, deliver a lift, drive a lift?

00:18:56: The sustainability is really a challenge for us in the industry of like, how do we become more energy efficient?

00:19:03: Thankfully, an elevator with a counterweight and so on is already in a good situation because you're not wasting too much energy.

00:19:11: So I think these things come together.

00:19:13: and the digitalization, it's not just technology, let's make everything digital.

00:19:18: It's like.

00:19:18: I think one of the key challenges we have in the industry is for people who are at the front faces to ask themselves, what do I want to offer?

00:19:28: What do I want to give my customers?

00:19:29: And then use the digitalization to achieve that.

00:19:33: It's like.

00:19:34: too often we have these buzzwords, AI, digitalization, but it means nothing if you haven't thought through.

00:19:39: What does it bring my customer?

00:19:40: What does it bring my supplier?

00:19:41: What does it bring us in the organization?

00:19:44: And that's kind of the challenge we have.

00:19:47: And I would say sustainability, it's there.

00:19:50: The energy efficiency, we are being driven.

00:19:52: We shouldn't be destroying our planet.

00:19:56: But if we're honest, it's also, it's like, I think within all industries, it's a buzzword and it's not really reflected fully in the culture.

00:20:06: But I would say for us in Brug, We do take that quite seriously.

00:20:10: It's being pushed from our sort of group level, but also internally within the organization.

00:20:16: But it's difficult if the whole industry doesn't move with you.

00:20:19: But hey, it's like we do our bit.

00:20:22: It's like, as Gandhi said, be the change you seek.

00:20:25: So

00:20:27: what's the project or topic that excites you the most right now at Brooklifting?

00:20:33: Yeah, there's two actually.

00:20:36: We're working on a brew system concept.

00:20:39: So we were traditionally a rope manufacturer and now we're moving up because in the past we've brought some new technologies.

00:20:47: We do coated traction media which allows sort of regen so you can regenerate energy.

00:20:55: You can have smaller machines.

00:20:56: These are more energy efficient.

00:20:58: So these are things that are coming out on the sustainability side.

00:21:01: But we've moved up the value.

00:21:02: chain because what we found was there was a lot of problems in the industry.

00:21:06: you know you've got the big players who are like sort of introducing these technologies because they have the engineering resources.

00:21:11: there's a lot of small players as well within the industry and they would also like to compete.

00:21:16: and here it's like we've got enabling technology.

00:21:20: we've got experience and we're sharing that experience.

00:21:22: you know we're bringing this new system aspect.

00:21:25: So we're not just selling a product anymore.

00:21:28: We're selling a system.

00:21:29: We're selling services.

00:21:31: So that's really exciting for us.

00:21:32: And then a little bit more internally focused is we're going through a transformation in our organization where we are trying to remove hierarchy.

00:21:42: You know, in the past, you would have conversations and they would kind of flow up the chain.

00:21:45: You've got all your managers and it comes down.

00:21:47: This is massively inefficient.

00:21:49: So as part of the digital digitalization or transforming our business, realize that we need to work on the people.

00:21:55: so we're working into sort of self-organizing teams pushing power down to the people that can make decisions where they need to be able to make decisions and not ask their manager who has no idea.

00:22:07: so this is really an exciting time within the company.

00:22:10: so it's working on the human level.

00:22:13: we've got these new products and the digitalization is kind of what sort of binds all of it together.

00:22:21: If you had to describe the industry in three words, what would it be?

00:22:28: That's a good question.

00:22:30: The elevator industry.

00:22:35: I would say... Yeah, I've never thought of that question actually before.

00:22:44: I would say that it's engineering-led, safety-led.

00:22:48: I would say it's fragmented but not in a bad way.

00:22:52: There's a lot of componentry and a lot of things that have to work together in harmony.

00:23:02: Interesting.

00:23:05: An elevator system is such a combination of different components.

00:23:11: An escalator system is not easy to put together.

00:23:14: There's so much stuff happening.

00:23:16: And there you really need to think about how things fit together.

00:23:19: It's almost like a flow or a chain or a rope, if you say.

00:23:25: A rope just looks very simple, but it's got a hundred and fifty-six moving parts within it.

00:23:29: And that's each individual wire.

00:23:30: And if each of them is not working well, then you don't get a good result.

00:23:34: And I think this is also true of the industry as a whole.

00:23:37: So those would be

00:23:39: cool.

00:23:40: Very interesting.

00:23:41: Interesting.

00:23:41: Yeah, that's it.

00:23:43: Parvesh, this was our podcast.

00:23:45: Lift and leaders.

00:23:45: Thank you so much for joining us and bringing us these insights on Brooklifting, but as well as you as you personally.

00:23:53: Thank you.

00:23:53: And thank you for joining us.

00:23:54: Thank you.

00:23:55: Thank you, Denise.

00:23:56: And thanks to InterLift.

00:23:57: Yeah.

00:23:57: And thanks to our listeners.

00:23:58: And yeah, if you liked it, leave a subscription here to our channel and tell it to your colleagues and your friends.

00:24:06: And thank you very much for listening.