It was just a few minutes to three in the morning when, on 13 May 1909, the first Giro d’Italia started off from Rondò Loreto in Milan. The race was the brainchild of the Gazzetta dello Sport under Eugenio Costamagna and Armando Cougnet, based on an idea put out by Angelo Gatti, the proprietor of Atala. A ride of almost two thousand five hundred kilometres, all the way to Naples, and then back to the Parco Trotter in Milan. There were 127 cyclists, in a number of Italian and French teams: the Bianchi, Stucchi, Atala, Rudge, and Legnano teams from Italy, and the fierce Peugeot and Alcyon teams from France.

News reports stated that a good half of the participants mounted bicycle tyres made by Pirelli & C Milano. All the Italians had their eyes on Luigi Ganna, the cycling champion from Induno Olona, in the province of Varese. Ganna was a bricklayer in Milan at the time, and every day he would ride to work on his bicycle: he was a young twenty-five-year-old who had already won the Milano-Sanremo that year. Carlo Galetti, of the Rudge team, was a “pensive” cyclist, who used to ride in the slipstream of the others and then beat them in the final sprint. Giovanni Rossignoli, nicknamed Baslòt, was a true sprinter, Giovanni Gerbi was known as the “Red Devil” because of his sweater, and Eberardo Pavesi was called the “professor” because he spoke in a refined manner. From beyond the Alps, the champion to beat was Lucien Petit-Breton, who by then had already won the Grand Boucle twice.

The roads were not paved in those days, and the event brought three weeks of punctures and falls: the cyclists would go to be treated at the nearest hospital and then return to continue the Giro. The dust was so bad that participants could not even recognise their opponents, and there were also some who took the train – the same one as the organisers – and were naturally disqualified from the race. That was cycling back in 1909.
In the end, the first to reach the Parco Trotter in Milan, on 30 May, was Dario Beni of the Bianchi team: he was a “free hitter” and had cycled all the way from Rome to Milan in order to take part in the Giro. The runner-up was Carlo Galetti, with Legnano. Luigi Ganna was only third, but since the overall classification was based on points and he had notched up 25 of them, he won the Giro and the 5,000 lire prize. There was no trace of the French at the finishing line. That year, Pirelli commissioned the Tipografia Ricordi to print a splendid postcard with art deco motifs and the message: “Pirelli tyres show they are the best, also in the Giro d’Italia”. A triumph to remember.

Analysing the relationships that can grow from the compromise between engaging in commercial promotion and keeping up producers’ historical legacy

Reconciling good manufacturing traditions with the need to create marketing strategies that are innovative and competitive every single time. No mean feat, but one that must be achieved. It is a goal that also entails competition between the many stakeholders of production companies, and a level of business culture that is based on more than mere numbers. This is a condition that ultimately applies to all production sectors, although it is clearer in certain examples. These are the issues discussed by Marta Maria Montella and Patrizia Silvestrelli in their text “Heritage e relationship marketing per le imprese agroalimentari italiane” (“Heritage and relationship marketing for Italian agri-food companies”), which recently appeared in Micro & Macro Marketing.

The authors begin by stating from the offset that their article addresses two issues that are gaining increasing importance in business management literature, and with regard to which good business practice is flourishing. On the one hand, then, we are faced with the need to build and manage long-term relationships with key stakeholders through relationship-based marketing strategies; meanwhile, on the other, we must seek to promote and enhance the historical and cultural heritage of companies, in order to support processes that engage shareholders as well as the local territory.

Having outlined the theoretical framework within which to proceed, Montella and Silvestrelli focus their attention on the strategies employed by Italian companies operating in the agri-food sector, and for whom the improvement and enhancement of the historical and cultural heritage is possible, as the authors explain, “courtesy of a system of relationships between different organisations,” which, by means of a process of interaction and reciprocal functionality, generate an overall value, thus “improving not only the performance of local businesses, but also of the entire surrounding area.” To substantiate their analysis, the two researchers use the case study of a distributor specialising in the promotion and online distribution of typical local products from the Marche region.

While Montella and Silvestrelli have not written a foundational text for the analysis of the intersection between corporate culture, manufacturing heritage and innovative commercial relations, those who read their research can nonetheless take a step forwards in their knowledge of these complex relationships, which are never the same as one another, and which – for this precise reason – can only be comprehended by collating many different examples, the analysis of which is supported by a theoretical system that can explain the reality as it is without distorting it.

“Heritage e relationship marketing per le imprese agroalimentari italiane” (“Heritage and relationship marketing for Italian agri-food companies”)

Marta Maria Montella, Patrizia Silvestrelli

Micro & Macro Marketing, 1, April 2020

A book gathers 55 examples of company structures, from which everyone can glean a wealth of useful information

The culture of change as one of the fundamental elements of good corporate culture. All in all, the message is simple. The difficulty lies in implementing it. The growth of any business is dependent in part on a company’s ability to adapt to changing conditions as a result of the pressure of wider events and circumstances. Indeed, it is not only a question of techniques and means, but also of people, and as such, culture.

This is the perspective from which readers should approach The Business Model Navigator: 55 Models That Will Revolutionise Your Business, written by Oliver Gassmann, Karolin Frankenberger and Michaela Csik and recently published in Italy as Business model navigator. 55 modelli che rivoluzioneranno il vostro business. The authors’ conclusion – and the concept behind the book – is that a solid business model is at the heart of any successful enterprise, but that too often, companies fail to adapt to changing conditions, insisting on adhering to outdated models that can no longer deliver the results that they really need.

As such, the book is a collection of organisational models (55, as the title indicates) of different corporate structures, through which companies acquire their competitive advantage over others, with a particular emphasis on the methods and strategies which link production and sales, as well as a more general focus on the relationship with the external environment (which in this instance is the target market). But why 55? The answer is simple: the authors found that 55 business models are behind 90% of the world’s most successful businesses. According to them, these 55 models represent “the blueprints you need to revolutionise your business and drive powerful change.”

Gassmann, Frankenberger and Csik’s book is a collection, a handbook, which begins by setting out a brief theoretical framework of the subject, before reviewing each model, examining what it is, who invented it and who is using it now, as well as when and how to apply it. In this way, the organisational models of a host of leading companies are set out before us – Ryanair, Spotify, Bosch, Amazon, L’Oréal, eBay, Procter & Gamble, Lufthansa, Dell, PayPal, Ikea, Porsche, General Electric, Lamborghini and many others.

Gassmann, Frankenberger and Csik’s book must be taken for what it is: a good collection of examples, to be read, understood, and where possible, used as inspiration.

Business model navigator. 55 modelli che rivoluzioneranno il vostro business (Business Model Navigator: 55 Models That Will Revolutionise Your Business)

Oliver Gassmann, Karolin Frankenberger, Michaela Csik

Guerini Next, 2019.

Everyone is saying, “We need a new Marshall plan.” Thoughts are turning to a plan with a series of extraordinary interventions to help cope with the dual crisis of pandemic and recession. This plan would consist of emergency measures (assistance to those who have lost their jobs and income) and long-term investments in order to facilitate economic recovery. Naturally, the historical reference is fascinating, even though it is inaccurate. It has the symbolic strength of something exceptional, of a collective commitment that united the donor – the USA – and the 16 European countries that benefited. But it is also unrepeatable, due to the political limits that exist. The geopolitical map has changed, in part due to the effects of Covid-19, which has hit the USA particularly hard; in the rankings, it comes in just after China, and ahead of the various individual countries of Europe (Russia is currently third worst hit by the pandemic). And needs have changed too, along with the starting conditions (namely emerging as quickly as possible from the rubble and poverty of war and relaunching production on a massive scale, strengthening Western democracies in the meantime), and the objectives.

Today, after the partial halt of economic activities across (almost) the entire world, we should be focusing on a real paradigm shift in our economies, concentrating on “common assets” (health, the environment), a better social balance (Covid-19 has hit the most socially disadvantaged and the poorest areas of cities the hardest), safety and quality of life and work. Much of the scientific world is reflecting on the links – included those that are not directly causal – between the pandemic and climate change and environmental devastation. And there is a growing awareness that the new key to restarting the economy is a focus on environmental and social sustainability and the opportunities offered by the digital economy, as well as the responsible use of artificial intelligence.

A new world waiting to be redesigned, a just economy waiting to be built, in light of the observations made by both Pope Francis and figures from the relevant areas of economic thought and the world of business, which call for stakeholder values to be prioritised: the needs and interests of the workers, customers, suppliers, consumers and communities with which the companies themselves seek to establish a positive relationship. To put it briefly, rather than a new Marshall plan, the EU needs a new Delors plan, founded upon ambitious investments in both tangible infrastructures (digital first and foremost) and intangible infrastructures (including research, training, culture, health, safety, etc.), with a view to achieving an extraordinary leap in terms of the quality and sustainability of EU economies.

A few facts can give us a clearer picture. The Marshall plan, which was rolled out in 1947, paid out 12.7 billion dollars over the four years until 1951 – the equivalent of 1.1% of US GDP at the time. The countries that made most use of these resources were the United Kingdom (3.3 billion), France (2.3 billion), West Germany (1.45 billion) and Italy (1.2 billion): food to combat the looming spectre of hunger and resources to get production facilities back up and running (in Italy, the 1947 agreement between Confindustria, led by Angelo Costa and CGIL, led by Giuseppe Di Vittorio, set its priorities clearly: “First factories, then houses”). It was a plan based on grants, non-refundable cash – a gigantic donation to breathe life not only back into the economies, but above all to consolidate the close relationship between the European democracies and the USA, mounting their opposition to the USSR and the area of Europe under the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact.

Today, the equivalent of that 1.1% of US GDP in 1947 would be around 235 billion dollars. If we translate the 12.7 billion dollars into today’s money, it is worth 156 billion (calculations are provided by the ever-efficient Assolombarda Research Centre). So, we’re talking about a new Marshall plan worth between 150 billion and 250 billion dollars.

The EU has a much more ambitious goal for its future, if we add the 1 trillion euros mobilised by the ECB to buy government bonds (and to thus support the debt of individual countries, beginning with Italy) and the Recovery Plan on the horizon, which promises 1.5 trillion in the 2021–2027 EU budget. In her speech to the European Parliament on 16 April, the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was extremely clear: “Europe has done more in the last four weeks than it did in the first four years of the last crisis.”

What is the best way to use this money? This is the very idea behind the new Delors plan, or as some are calling it, the Delors-Draghi plan for long-term EU investment in communal, physical and digital infrastructures, and in order to facilitate far-reaching political harmony between the countries in the Union: “One fiscal and financial policy, a real and infrastructural policy: convergence and growth must go hand in hand,” as Alberto Quadrio Curzio, one of the world’s leading economists, says in the Huffington Post (9 May).

For Italy, this is an extraordinary opportunity to tackle the emergencies that have emerged due to the crisis and restart our economy. EU resources to the tune of more than 250 billion euros are up for grabs, including purchases of public securities from the ECB (180 billion), structural funds, financing from the EIB and funds from the European Stability Mechanism for healthcare. 60 billion of this total figure is subject to some constraints in terms of where it can be placed (the 36 billion provided by the ESM must be spent directly and indirectly on healthcare, with 15 billion for unemployment (the Sure programme), 5 as a guarantee for loans to businesses, and 5 for agriculture.  So, an enormous chunk of financial resources that’s not to be wasted.

Much of this sum is made up of loans, which will have to be repaid. This will be less of a tall order if the economy can get back to growing and producing wealth once again, bringing jobs and fiscal resources for the state coffers as a consequence.

This is where the political challenge lies. These funds – and the absence of the constraints of the Stability Pact, at least for as long as the pandemic lasts – and the effects thereof in the medium term must be used to get the economy back on its feet, boosting productivity and competitiveness in businesses, supporting the digital modernisation of the country’s public administration bodies and the services they provide, improving health and training and last but not least, launching a major initiative to safeguard and protect the environment and infrastructure. To begin the reconstruction of Italy, in other words.

In the world of politics and unfortunately also in government, there are two opposing sides: those who use welfare, subsidies, magic money trees and running public expenditure as a basis for gaining support (like the Five Star Movement) and those who are focused on work, the productive economy, and support for growth and development. The second is the side that is looking to the future with a sense of responsibility. A welfare-dependent, unproductive Italy is doomed to face growing impoverishment and detachment from the rest of Europe.

One of the great names in the long history of Pirelli inventions is that of Carlo Barassi. Born in Milan in 1910, he graduated in industrial mechanical engineering from the Politecnico University in 1933 and the following year he joined Pirelli, where he was taken on by the Technical Department of the Rubber Central Management. In 1939 he was moved to the Group’s branch in East Africa, where he was interned in a British prison camp in Kenya at the outbreak of the Second World War. As he himself recalled in a 1956 memoir, during his years of imprisonment he asked if he could start making furniture, toys and miscellaneous items in the prison camp so as “to make life among those behind bars a bit less monotonous” and, in just over two years, the products “enjoyed remarkable success not only in Kenya but also in Uganda, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, and South Africa”.

The need to use the materials he had to hand meant he could try out some innovative technical solutions, which he applied to Pirelli products once he got back to Milan. Barassi himself wrote about the application of an elastic suspension system for use in the production of items of furniture such as armchairs, sofas, and beds, with springs consisting of intertwining strips of rubber cut from old inner tubes. This was the prelude to the invention of the Nastro Cord, which Barassi patented in 1948: this textile band was made with the same rubberised fabric used for tyre production, but it was bound together in a double layer. In 1950, he had the idea of using Nastro Cord on ski racks and luggage racks to make them even more practical than the elastic luggage retainers that had been made by Pirelli in 1948 and 1949. The new patent was later transferred for use by Kartell, a company that had recently been set up by the engineer Castelli, which launched its collection of car accessories with this invention as its first product.

Another application that Barassi thought up for Nastro Cord was in furniture production, a sector in which another innovative material made by Pirelli could be applied: foam rubber, which had been patented in the 1930s but until then used mainly for mattresses and in the healthcare sector. In the post-war period, sales of foam rubber to furniture makers were extremely limited, so Barassi thought that a new company making foam rubber for use in furniture, “based on completely new concepts and lines and with staff to be trained especially in methods that were not those used by traditional upholsterers”, could achieve success. He shared this idea with Angelo Bay and Pio Reggiani, who had previously worked at Pirelli, and the Arflex company was born. They quickly brought in the finest Italian architects and designers, including Marco Zanuso, Franco Albini, Roberto Menghi, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Achille Castiglioni, to mention but a few, and started work on creating furniture in innovative shapes and materials, many of which came from Pirelli: they used Pirelli foam rubber for the padding, Nastro Cord for the structures, and Lastex and Vinilpelle for the upholstery.

Back at Pirelli, in the meantime, Barassi’s fervid mind came up with another revolutionary invention as the 1950s came to end. It was to change the Italians’ driving habits, especially in the winter: the BS3 tyre, with a tread detached from the carcass, with three interchangeable rings that could turn it into a tyre for snow and ice in the winter, and one for normal use in the summer. Hailed as a revolutionary tyre, the patent for the BS3 was filed by Carlo Barassi and Giuseppe Lugli. The creation of this tyre came after of years of study and experimentation by the Rubber Technical Department, which was then headed by Sergio Vittorelli. The department was an extraordinary training ground for some brilliant minds, such as Luigi Emanueli and Mario Mezzanotte, who went on to make their mark on Pirelli’s research and development in later years. But these are other stories of innovation and research, waiting to be told.

The cyclist Gino Bartali passed away twenty years ago, on 5 May 2000. He had notched up an endless string of victories, between the 1930s and 1950s, wearing his Legnano-Pirelli jersey and also with the Italian national team. It would be impossible to retrace the entire career of this cycling champion here, from his debut as a young amateur in 1934 – he was born in Ponte a Ema in 1914 – until he retired from racing in 1954. By the end, he had reaped huge international success and, partly due to his historical rivalry with Fausto Coppi, he had become a living legend. However, we would like to show you Bartali as he appeared in so many pages of Pirelli magazine, which – as a periodical of “information and technology” – always devoted ample space to the sports phenomena of its day, with articles by famous writers and journalists like Orio Vergani. It was indeed Vergani who, as a correspondent of the Corriere della Sera, wrote an article entitled “How I know Gino and Fausto”, published in Pirelli magazine no. 4 of 1950. It painted a precise portrait of the two heroes of the time: on the one hand the tenacious Florentine from out of town, with his “strange, obstinate, furious, almost unruly way of pounding on the pedals”, and on the other the silent, tormented Fausto. Deep down, in this epic clash between Fausto Coppi – who is compared to Achilles, the “son of a goddess, dismayed by the supernatural gifts received from nature” – and Gino Bartali, who is imagined as Ulysses, the “son of common mortals, patient and irascible”, the journalist appears to take the side of the man, who “lives out his Odyssey with patience and nerves of steel”.

Another great expert on cycling was Giuseppe Ambrosini, the founder, amongst other things, of Guerin Sportivo magazine, who in the previous year wrote an article entitled “Bartali and Coppi: the secret of power”, in Pirelli magazine no. 3 of 1949, making a meticulous comparison between the two champions. Ambrosini describes Gino Bartali’s “benevolent generosity”, in perennial contrast to the hypersensitivity of Fausto, “whose morale is extremely influenced by his physical condition, by his opponent, by everything around him”.

Gino Bartali certainly loved fine food. In 1951, Pirelli magazine commissioned Nino Nutrizio, another magnificent scribe, to write a new article about him: the former apprentice of the bicycle mechanic in Ponte a Ema had now become a hero, captured in a moment of well-deserved rest after the cycling season: “born tough, old, and hardened, Bartali smoked more than he should have done during the winter, indulging in some abundant dishes, and he didn’t disdain a dance or even two with his young wife, whom he loved so dearly.” These are portraits of a champion, revealing all his humanity, in both sport and life.

“The first attempts to manufacture insulated telegraph wires for the military engineers corps were made in 1879. Ingegner Pirelli realised how important electrical conductors would become with the development of electrical engineering, which was going through a decisive period at the time. Electrical conductors were one of the first products that Ing. Pirelli dared to manufacture in Italy when no other country in the world, with the exception of Britain, had started making them…” This was how, in 1946, Alberto Pirelli recalled how the company founded in 1872 by his father Giovanni Battista made its entry into rubber insulated electrical conductors. In those years, the sector was firmly in the hands of the British, from where Italy too had to obtain its supplies, but it was of fundamental importance for the development of a country. An initial telegraph network – including the underwater link that joined Sicily and Sardinia to the peninsula – was commissioned from the Eastern Telegraph company by the post-Unification government. In 1884, when Giovanni Battista Pirelli heard of a new government project to create a telegraph network linking up some of Italy’s smaller islands to the peninsula and that negotiations were already underway with the British, he successfully asked for the talks to be suspended so that he could present a project of his own. It was a pretty reckless and risky idea, from both a technical and a financial point of view, but Ingegner Pirelli did not hesitate. In 1885 the Group built a new factory in La Spezia, specifically for the production of submarine cables, and the following year an agreement was signed with the government for laying cables and for the maintenance of the entire Italian submarine telegraph network for the following 20 years. To make it a success, Pirelli turned to the very best in electrical engineering science in Italy, Galileo Ferraris, a professor at the Politecnico University of Turin. Ferraris recommended one of his students, who had recently graduated and specialised at the Montefiore Institute in Liège: Emanuele Jona. Born in Biella in 1860, Jona joined the company at the age of 25 and remained there for the following 33 years, making the company a key international player in the cables sector. Jona enjoyed freedom of action at Pirelli and the full confidence of the company, in one of the first, rare examples in Italy at the time of collaboration between science and industry, and of research applied to industrial production.

Ahead of other European countries, such as France and Germany, Jona and Pirelli led Italy to one of the greatest electrotechnical breakthroughs of the time, the complexity of which was not just in the production of these cables but also in laying them on the seabed, using a special cable-laying ship.

Jona personally supervised the cable-laying operations on board the Città di Milano – the name chosen by Pirelli to christen the ship – on which he carried out 73 missions. Their success immediately aroused great admiration in international technical circles and soon earned Pirelli several commissions also from foreign countries, such as the creation of a cable link between Spain and its North African possessions in 1891. The Tarifa-Tangier connection was particularly tricky, due to the strong currents of the Strait of Gibraltar, which on a number of occasions had prevented British technicians from performing the operation successfully. Jona succeeded in his venture, and was much admired for it by his British colleagues.

Jona’s research made it possible to equip the Pirelli laboratory with increasingly advanced instruments, such as the extremely powerful transformers that he personally designed and built. This enabled Pirelli to become specialised in the production of very high voltage electricity cables and to win other important contracts around the world. These included the laying of 5 cables across the Nile in 1898, supplies for the Niagara power plant in 1899 and an international tender for laying 6 cables across Lake Garda to carry electricity from the power plant in Ponale all the way to Rovereto, which was then in Austrian territory.

The results of his research into the transmission of high voltage electricity, which he carried out together with the mathematical physicist Levi Civita, were presented in 1904 at the International Electricity Congress in Saint Louis, causing a great stir in the world of international electrical engineering. The highest honour he received for his scientific work was the presidency of the Italian Electrotechnical Association, which he held from 1906 to 1908, but he always focused his research on achieving important new results for the company he worked for. In 1919, during one of his missions on the Città di Milano, Jona perished together with most of the crew when the ship struck a rock off the island of Filicudi and sank in just a few minutes. But a new generation of cable technicians had grown up alongside the genius that was Jona and another expert was ready to take his place: Luigi Emanueli, head of the laying machines. He joined Pirelli in 1907, and went on to bring about important technical innovations for the Milan-based company.

Objects and products that have become the stuff of history emerged from the ideas and extensive engineering work carried out by talented men, whose research and discoveries revolutionised the rubber production sector and the daily lives of Italians and others around the world.

An expert in digital communications discusses the importance of a reputation founded upon substance, not just on appearances

The globalisation of communication, and therefore of knowledge, and even more so, of images. Both humans and non-humans – and therefore production organisations and machines – have to contend with the absolute interconnection of tools for information and communication, whether they like it or not. This is what we call the infosphere, and is the subject, as the title suggests, of a book written by Daniele Chieffi, on the basis of his experiences in the field of digital communication, in both the public and private spheres.

La reputazione ai tempi dell’infosfera. Cos’è, come si costruisce, come si difende (“Reputation in the era of the infosphere: what it is, how it is built, and how to defend it”)

begins with a statement of fact: in this day and age, we live in an infosphere where everyone – both human and non-human – is interconnected and interdependent, with accessible information, immediate communication and judgements and opinions that are entirely visible. However, the author draws his reader’s attention to a particular aspect of this inter-connection – namely, the fact that individuals and institutions, companies and the media are on the same level, and are all equally and inevitably subject to collective value judgements. Reputation, therefore, is a crucial aspect, and one which involves everyone in one way or another; this is the theme that Chieffi explores over around 150 pages of enjoyable reading.

The text begins with the observation that while reputation follows the psychological, cognitive and sociological rules of human groups, these are modified and amplified by digital dynamics. As such, the first and second sections of the book explain the concept of reputation, in the absence of the “megaphone” of the digital sphere, before going on to explore what this becomes when the digitisation and globalisation of information enters the lives of people and social constructs. This is the “glass house” that we have found ourselves in, and to which the notion of reputation must be adapted.

The third part of the book addresses the creation and subsequent management of reputation in the era of the infosphere. Here, among other things, Chieffi considers how reputation has become the main strategic tool for any subject, and looks at the rules of the infosphere that must be taken into account in order to avoid making mistakes. Web tactics and strategy, then, with practical indications of what should and shouldn’t be done. With a constant emphasis: appearing must not replace being. Chieffi writes the following in his conclusions: “The infosphere is a vast stage, the perfect glass house, where everything we do and say – or do not do and do not say – the way we present ourselves, the things that we show, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and what others see or think they see, is judged, evaluated and loaded with meaning. In order to build and defend a reputation – the only true value recognised by the infosphere – we must all strategically govern what is seen and the meaning it is given: we must stage every element perfectly, so that perceived reality coincides with actual reality. Appearing as we truly are, enhancing our identity and being an active, positive, constructive and fully accepted element of our social context is the goal of reputation management. Perfect staging is not tantamount to fabricating falsehoods, nor providing misleading or manipulative representations, but rather producing value for others: this is the ethical approach to reputation management”.

La reputazione ai tempi dell’infosfera. Cos’è, come si costruisce, come si difende (“Reputation in the era of the infosphere: what it is, how it is built, and how to defend it”)

Daniele Chieffi

Franco Angeli, 2020

A recently published study analyses the case of Tod’s as an example of corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility. In challenging times, CSR is without doubt the most important feature of production organisations. A focus on the local territory – indeed, a responsible approach – as well on the environment inside and outside the factory, combined with a sense of dedication to those around us, and to machines. Without losing sight of the need to ensure that the books remain healthy. Accordingly, responsibility is at the heart of a new form of competitiveness, in addition to a business culture that is based on more than just simple sums.

This is what we are seeing in many companies across the country, and it is the focus of the analysis carried out by Maria Rosaria Napolitano, Riccardo Resciniti and Floriana Fusco in their study, “Il Gruppo Tod’s tra identità culturale del Bel Paese e successo internazionale” (“The Tod’s Group, Italian cultural identity and international success”) published recently in Micro & Macro Marketing magazine.

The study focuses on the Tod’s Group as an excellent example of the symbiosis between a company and the context in which it operates at local level; a symbiosis that results in an exchange of mutual social and economic value. The work takes a closer look at the ways in which the positive union between Tod’s and the territory is achieved. The authors identify two key areas.  Specifically, they suggest, on the one hand, that the cultural heritage of the original industrial district – which in this instance is understood as a collection of knowledge derived from a tradition of manufacturing – is the main source of the Group’s competitive strategy. On the other, meanwhile, as the authors explain in their analysis, is the group’s deep social commitment and dedication to the community, the cultural sensitivity and what is referred to as the “civil passion” of Tod’s, which together serve to create the human and business conditions necessary in order to generate continuous initiatives that incorporate corporate social responsibility in various different ways.

Finally, all of these elements are made explicit, maintaining a delicate yet important balance between the needs of the company, production, the local territory, the national and international markets and the high-level image that Tod’s enjoys within the sector in which it operates. A combination of marketing and the organisation of production, corporate culture and a healthy approach to finances.

As such, tradition and commitment make Tod’s an example that can also serve to guide other areas of business. The study by Napolitano, Resciniti and Fusco illustrates this in an effective manner.

Il Gruppo Tod’s tra identità culturale del Bel Paese e successo internazionale (“The Tod’s Group, Italian cultural identity and international success”)

Maria Rosaria Napolitano, Riccardo Resciniti, Floriana Fusco

Micro & Macro Marketing, 1, 2020, April

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” as Churchill once said. A crisis means rupture and change. And in order to prevent it being wasted, it calls for far-sighted, ambitious policy, at once visionary and tangible. In these most challenging of times, as we feel the full impact of the pandemic and the recession, we are indeed at risk of wasting it all.

The warning signs are clear, and the most prominent is a combination of poor government in terms of proper use of financial resources for saving businesses from disaster, and the growth of a worrying trend towards nationalisation of the economy. In our blog posts in recent weeks, we have already highlighted the emergence – not only in many areas of public opinion but also unfortunately in political and government circles – of an anti-business climate, a sense of hostility towards private enterprise, a culture of market and meritocracy, and the social values of industry and economic innovation. Now, the worsening of the crisis and the consequential drop in incomes and rise in poverty, fear and concern for the future have led to a widespread re-emergence of the need for protection, assistance and public funding.

And of course, in the emergency phase, this intervention by the public purse is essential in order to quickly offset the risks represented by the shut-down of economic activities, especially those in the service sector and small and very small businesses, and to ensure economic support for those who have lost their jobs and income. But behind this sense of urgency, there is a temptation of a very different nature, and one that is more long-term: the long-standing Italian desire for an economy based on subsidy, aid and the protection of corporations and customers – as opposed to an economy of production – has re-emerged. A citizen’s income, emergency income, universal income, or whatever you want to call it, provided in the absence of work, instead of a job that produces income. This trend is becoming more widespread, extending beyond the confines of the emergency, and taking the shape of a sub-culture that focuses on benefits, not salaries. And this is a real threat – the threat of a radical upheaval of civil coexistence, as well as of the potential for recovery.

In addition to this benefits culture, we are also faced with an insidious road leading back to an overweening state. Even now, government bodies control almost half of the Milan Stock Exchange; they are preparing to get involved in Ilva and to dominate Alitalia entirely. Elsewhere, the state is looking to extend its influence over thousands of companies, converting state-guaranteed loans into shares. Are we preparing for a wave of nationalisation? The main instrument of this “IRI2” strategy is Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, the Italian investment bank that collects the postal savings of the country’s people, and which is under the firm control of the government (although other major shareholders include various important banking foundations, which do not seem the type to take nationalisation lying down).

In order to respond to the crisis and save businesses, of course, temporary public assistance can make a lot of sense. Germany, France and various other European countries are moving in this direction, with the traditional strength provided by powerful and efficient public bodies. “More than one euro in every two given as aid to companies is spent by Germany […] to the tune of nearly a one trillion euros”, according to Il Foglio. And the case of Lufthansa (on which the government spent 10 billion to acquire 25% of the airline and finance its recovery) is just the best-known example of a public intervention strategy. Once the crisis finally comes to an end, its effects will certainly be felt.

Does this mean more help from the state, then? It depends on the forms of financing and investment provided. It would be better if this were not the case, if public intervention were seen as a means of moulding business strategy. And if such an intervention must be made – on pain of the failure of a significant portion of the industrial system – then clear limits are essential: non-repayable financing and not just credit, a long repayment term, and where public equity is resorted to, independent and authoritative corporate governance, in order to bring companies back to the market and back into ownership by private shareholders. These measures would avoid the significant temptation to strengthen the hold of politics and bureaucrats on the economy and on companies, through an overweening state.

A fascinating rhetoric has begun to take shape over the course of these crisis-racked months: the rhetoric of the post-War Italian Reconstruction. It is a lovely rhetoric, full of brilliant political and civil values. But it is also misleading. The years between 1945 and the early Fifties relied on a young and enthusiastic ruling class, who had cut their teeth on the political and moral tensions of the battle against Nazism and Fascism, and who were passionate about the ideas underpinning democratic freedoms. This ruling class headed the new institutions of the Italian Republic, moving with a united spirit towards a better future for Italy, even in the depths of extremely bitter political and social conflicts. This ruling class felt a strong sense of responsibility, which gave institutional and political substance to the initiatives and to the desire for recovery, employment, the well-being of workers and entrepreneurs. One example of this was the labour agreement between CGIL (the Italian General Confederation of Labour), led by Giuseppe Di Vittorio, and Confindustria (the General Confederation of Italian Industry), led by Angelo Costa, with its slogan “First factories, then houses”. And they set their sights on a united Europe, viewing this as a positive horizon of further freedom and opportunities for economic growth. The “economic boom” that followed, and lasted until the mid-1960s, was driven by a cross between the vital spark of the various social players of the time and the positive public intervention measures they took (although this reformism was hampered over time by more conservative instincts).

IRI (the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction), founded in the early 1930s, had been crucial in saving Italy’s frail industry from the consequences of the Great Depression that started on Wall Street in 1929, and the institute was relaunched after the war. Since its foundation, the IRI had been led by managers inspired by the culture and ethics of responsibility championed by civil servants, such as Alberto Beneduce, an economist with a socialist background who was capable of great autonomy, even under an all-consuming regime like Fascism. And in the post-war period, at the behest of other great managers, such as Oscar Sinigaglia, Agostino Rocca, Giuseppe Luraghi and Pasquale Saraceno (who would go on to lead the most successful efforts of Cassa per il Mezzogiorno), and educated, broad-minded bankers, such as Raffaele Mattioli, president of Banca Commerciale Italiana, the IRI, together with Enrico Mattei‘s Eni, played a fundamental role in restarting the reconstruction, supporting the relaunch of Italy’s economy and the process of industrialisation: infrastructure (the Autostrada del Sole motorway being one of the most famous examples), energy, services, finance and core industry, from steel to chemicals. Then, from the Seventies onwards, the decline began: excessive political influence, frequent bail-outs of insolvent companies (the futility of the famous panettone di Stato, the “state pie”), and a management team chosen – with a few exceptions – for their party loyalty rather than for their skill and foresight in the world of business or for their pursuit of a productive and competitive corporate culture. Not forgetting the inefficient banking system, which, by the end of the Eighties, had been reduced to a “petrified forest” (this expression, more apt than ever, was coined by Giuliano Amato, Minister of Treasury and subsequently President of the Council in the early Nineties, a complex period of economic renewal and privatisation).

Those days are gone. They are not missed. If anything, in order to clamber out of the crisis, the Italian economy is in need of a relaunch, of internationalisation, greater productivity, superior competitiveness, dedication to the green economy and a sustainable approach to business that is both efficient and responsible. The public authorities, the state, governments, are responsible for establishing clear rules, implementing effective controls, investing in basic infrastructure, research and training, and ensuring the conditions exist for an open and transparent market. Instead of having an entrepreneurial state that gets involved in business management, Italy must focus on being a good builder of political strategies, both within its borders and in the EU, to help companies grow and make markets as efficient as possible.

In short, we need good policy, and not small power plots or ideological decisions implemented by the pervasive public purse.

The issue is that unfortunately, we are dealing with a political situation that is very fragile, and not up to the challenges that lie ahead. We are emerging from years of diatribes (some of which have been founded, and many of which have been specious) against the “caste” of politicians and elites, years characterised by an anti-parliamentary populism which has aimed to “open Parliament up like a can of tuna”, and by a parochial and anti-EU desire for sovereignty, with institutions populated by representatives appointed by party leaders for their loyalty rather than for their skill or competence. Good politics, and the initiatives associated with it, has been replaced by an obsession with frantic social media communication, against a backdrop that is teeming with fake news and background noise that favours neither the knowledge nor the capacity to put forward responsible criticism. The horizon of long-term transformations (the political endeavour of a good politician, a statesman) is overshadowed by the mediocrity of the instant and compulsive personal gratification provided by “likes”.

However, in clawing our way out of the crisis, we must make our way up a slippery slope. And a change in tone, choices and the very culture of government is what we must jointly commit to in the immediate future. Both in parliament and in government, there do exist personalities and factions that display a certain degree of foresight, coupled with a clear sense of responsibility. And there are also alert social forces at work, boasting both knowledge and skills, with the capacity for informed criticism, proposal and collaboration. The Quirinale is a firm point of reference, a place of rules, competence and democratic guarantees, with a solid pro-EU vision. This country, which has proved itself so generous and so responsible even in the current era of difficulty and pain, deserves serious choices, and a better future.