Clients
Banco Galicia and Mashin: since 2009
Banco Galicia has worked with Mashin since 2009. The relationship began over a stand that never arrived on time and today covers the coordination, construction and supplier oversight for its presence at the country's leading trade shows.
The problem
Every March, Expoagro brings Argentina's agricultural sector together out in the open, between the north of Buenos Aires province and the south of Santa Fe. For Banco Galicia's wholesale banking division, it was an event you could not miss.
And every year the same thing failed. The suppliers the bank worked with did not deliver on time, and every edition ended the same way: last-minute work, rushed finishes and the uncertainty of not knowing whether everything would be ready when the doors opened.
The weather did not help either. In March, in that area, it rains. Building in the open between mud and water delays any construction, and what was already tight became impossible.
Changing the question
The bank did not need one more supplier. It needed someone who would choose the supplier well and hold them to it.
Mashin took on that role in 2009. It asked the bank for the full list of suppliers it had historically worked with (architecture, construction and other trades) and built a bidding process from an in-depth brief, with clear conditions that were going to be evaluated.
- A defined presentation format. Everyone submitted the same information the same way, so they could be properly compared.
- An open budget. Every line item visible, with no closed figures impossible to review.
- A specific build schedule. With concrete deadlines committed to from day one.
Only those who met every requirement kept moving forward in the process.
Reward and penalty
And one rule changed the outcome: the moment of delivery had consequences.
Delivering 48 hours before opening earned a reward. Delivering 24 hours before, a penalty. Delivering at opening time, a bigger penalty.
For the first time, arriving on time was not a wish. It was part of the contract.
March 2010
The first stand was a country house of about 120 covered square meters, with a corrugated-roof gallery, hay bales at the entrance and a life-size cow with her own name: Alicia. Inside, desks and computers to attend to the farmers. Outside, the mud on the tracks was a reminder of why this work had never been easy.
The stand was built in two weeks on a lot of more than 600 square meters and was delivered finished 48 hours before opening. It was the first time in many years that had happened.
How it grew
Since 2010, Mashin has built the stand every year, with the sole exception of the pandemic year and the one after it.
The process matured too. The bank kept refining it until it became its own, and today the work covers coordinating the stand, construction and supplier oversight, with site visits throughout the build.
The country house grew to 450 covered square meters plus galleries, built in the same two weeks and on the same field. Large LED screens, green walls, materials reused to cut the carbon footprint and separated waste treatment. With one commitment kept every year: once the show ends, the land is left exactly as it was found.
The welcome cocktail for people from the countryside scaled up in the same proportion. In 2010 it hosted between 150 and 200 guests with a kitchen set up on site. Today it is nearly 800, in the middle of the field, with everything that implies.
Trust opens other doors
Delivering at Expoagro brought other challenges inside the bank.
- Aapresid. Another of Argentina's major agricultural trade shows, where Mashin developed stands designed with artificial intelligence.
- Ekoparty. The region's leading information-security gathering, where the bank's stand was voted the best for two editions running.
- Private banking. Organizing and coordinating year-end events for private banking across the country's interior.