Interview with an Innovator: Diana Villanueva

I have worked at Designetics for 5 ½ years.

My first role with Designetics was Administrative Assistant/Sales Assistant. I was in this role for my first six months with the company. My job then entailed answering phones, processing daily orders, helping sales with any additional requests from customers and in my downtime, I was able to learn several processes to assist the Controller with daily items. After working in this position, I was approached by the then V.P. (now President) and Director of Sales to move into a new position—Inside Sales and Support. The transition first consisted of working with the additional requests received by Sales and to be open to growing with the position to assist Sales further in a different capacity. The position has evolved quite a bit since.

My day-to-day responsibilities consist of responding to quote requests, processing and billing of equipment orders, setting up new customers, assisting in the prototype process, initiating Design Plans when a customer approves a prototype, internal processes and procedures, and acting as a bridge between Sales and other employees internally as well as the customer, among various other tasks. The best part of the position is that my day-to-day can vary, so it is never a dull moment around here.

Certain tasks require priority, so depending on my current day, I try to plan around the tasks at hand to incorporate prioritization of “most important” to “least important.” It has been a work in progress to know I may not complete all tasks before I leave for the day…and some items ultimately may not be completed until the next day. For someone who is a Type A personality (like myself), this has been a work in progress to achieve and accept. The ability to multi-task is very important in this role as well.

Coming from a background and belief to exceed expectations, I try to look at the whole picture and how it may impact others outside of my “Insides Sales Support world.” I firmly believe you should understand or have basic knowledge of a process and/or concept from start to finish and how it impacts all who are involved before you can really “support” the process.

Without this knowledge, I don’t feel you can effectively provide the full support needed—whether it be to our internal or external customers. Knowledge and understanding are key to any process to successfully provide any impact. I also believe you should always be open to change and learning about items outside of sales to ultimately support the sales team effectively.

One challenge as we saw with the last year of covid-19, was how we move forward and complete the tasks at hand when most employees were working from home. I believe this allowed us to see how we were able to divert and persevere despite the pandemic. Many may have acquired new skills in not having co-workers readily there in person and allowed for better troubleshooting and resolution. I feel we came out stronger due to the challenges we faced over the last year when we had to work remotely.

Designetics is customer service-oriented on the sales front. From a sales standpoint, we fully listen to all details and requests from the customer to better assist them with the process at hand. We work hard to provide the best solution for our customers based on their needs and process. With our specialized knowledge, we are able to better assist our customers. Designetics prides itself in being the industry leader to provide the best solution possible and I feel our sales team works hard to achieve this.

As technology is ever evolving, there are always new ideas and strategies to obtain and assist customers. This is part of the ever-changing evolvement I believe Designetics has strived to achieve.

As technology evolves further, I feel our engineers are always in the process of looking toward the future and improving how we operate. Designetics is open to change and improving upon current processes to grow as a company, as well as serve the industry even better.

Yes, I absolutely see more automation becoming a hot topic of many manufacturers…more so after the pandemic, they have seen the need to automate processes further as employees are difficult to come by in many industries. Another factor is that many industries had the time to review their existing processes and see how they can better improve upon the existing ones. Automation for many areas helps with efficiency and standardization.

I can see Designetics growing even further, branching out into unchartered territory. As technology and industry standards evolve, I believe Designetics will be at the forefront to continue to grow for the betterment of the company.