Added value of over 140 billion euros and employment for around 3.3 million people: this was the snapshot, in figures, presented at this National Interest roundtable session of the engine of Italy’s manufacturing system, driven by the country’s leading sectors – the so-called “4 Fs” of the Made-in-Italy industry: Ferrari cars and non-electronic machinery and equipment, fashion and clothing, food and beverage, and furniture and wood products. This latter sector, in particular, produces a very large trade surplus in real terms for Italian industry, higher, for instance, than that generated by the British pharmaceutical or French chemical industries. These figures place Italy in first ranking among the European Union countries for furniture production and second worldwide, only after China, in terms of balance of trade in the same sector. But above all, these are numbers that mark out the country’s undisputed world leadership in the sector, a position of dominance forged throughout the course of the twentieth century on the back of a wealth of creativity and a standard of workmanship widely-recognized as denoting excellence.
It is in this link between creativity and practical application, between “ideas” and “hands”, that much of what is commonly referred to as the Italian genius loci resides: the unique ability to transmit to a manufactured product the power to evoke the place and culture that have generated it, the ability to infuse “products” – in this case, designed goods – with aesthetic and emotional value that goes far beyond their raw value.
The participants noted, however, that whilst this flair certainly continues to characterize the image and performance of the Italian furniture and wood-products sector, there is a risk that the extraordinary complexity of the geo-economic context in which it is forced to operate in order to compete successfully in an age of globalization may mean that these characteristics will not suffice to sustain a position of leadership, particularly in the medium-to-long term. Indeed, not only is the number of competitors (especially from Asia) increasing, as is their ability to tap into a demand that is becoming more and more varied and fragmented, but so too is the permeability of the Italian system and its exposure to product reproduction or counterfeiting. This gives rise to a growing difficulty – due to the limited size of Italy’s manufacturing firms and the constraints of their business management practices, which are too family-oriented and not particularly corporate – in penetrating new or unsaturated markets, or at any rate different to those in which they have traditionally operated.
More specifically, whilst it is true that the global crisis has had a significant impact on the sector, it is undeniable that for years the Italian design industry has paid the price for a fragile system that has gradually seen sales – despite the peak reached in around the year 2000 – fall back to levels recorded in 1995.
Examined closely from this perspective, the participants saw the industry’s revival prospects as bound up with the broader outlook for the recovery of competitiveness of the entire national production system, which is heavily export-oriented and inextricably linked to the distinctive traits of the Made-in-Italy sector. It was felt that in the design industry as well as in other sectors of excellence where what makes the difference is a combination of aesthetic quality, craftsmanship, cultural variety and precision workmanship, there is an inescapable need for change, innovation, and reappraisal in order to ensure a return to growth. In conclusion, whilst this imperative clearly calls into question the lagging performance of the political sphere in its role of steering and stimulating economic processes, it was seen as one that primarily concerns those operating in the industry, tasked with the responsibility of making courageous choices in terms of corporate governance (with a now unavoidable need to move towards mergers between firms or groups of firms), management practices, product and process innovation, and the adoption of a culture that is truly market-oriented and geared towards the purchasing habits of millions of new and discerning consumers.