Italy still today remains the Europe's largest bicycle manufacturer, with a total turnover of 1,3 billion euros, albeit down by more than 50% compared to ten years ago. Confindustria/Ancma data on the trend of the bike market in Italy for 2018 confirm the unstoppable growth of the e-bike sector which “it flies in double figures and is expected to take the lion's share within four to five years” compared to the traditional bicycle: 173 thousand e-bikes sold (+16.8%).
A 2019 Legambiente report estimates the economic value generated in the broad sense by the cycling sector at 7.6 billion. A figure that would increase to almost 12 billion the current value of the Pib, the Internal Bicycle Product (indicator that calculates the overall two-wheeler turnover).
Estimates that Gianluca Santilli and Pierangelo Soldavini, authors of bike economy. Journey to the pedaling world, they consider credible, even if they have no scientific basis, and can give a concrete indication of the current value of cycle-wealth. In consideration, above all, of the enormous growth margin that the sector in Italy could aspire to. To give an example, on the sidelines of the 173 e-bikes sold in Italy in 2018 there is the million sold in Germany in the same year.
For Santilli and Soldavini, the Italian delay is linked to a sales network that has been unable to innovate and struggles to shake off baseless beliefs and dangerous traditionalisms, combined with an objective difficulty in managing a product that is halfway between a bike and a moped, with repercussions also on management and maintenance issues.
Italy has always had a leadership role, undisputed until about ten years ago, thanks to its great manufacturing tradition, but which is now dangerously retreating. Excellence, fascinating stories, extraordinary entrepreneurs. But, as the authors of bike economy, the world has not been watching and if the Italian manufacturers can be blamed, it can be ascribed to their unshakeable belief that no one could have taken away the leadership of cycling from Italy and its manufacturers.
But this did not happen. Italian production in 1994 was 5,8 million pieces. In 2017 just 2,4 million. The reasons for the Italian delay and retreat are many and Santilli and Soldavini describe them all in detail.
Company size too small, little attention to marketing, the development of global commercial networks, market analysis, corporate finance, communication. All aggravated by an evident incapacity to manage the inevitable and often deficient generational pasts, as well as the reluctance to enter competent managers capable of enriching the company's potential.
Many Italian companies have business leaders who have not been able to innovate or pass the baton to suitable subjects in time, while foreign producers, behind which there are financial and industrial groups, have grown dramatically. Two virtuous Italian examples that the authors report in the text.
The first concerns the company Pinarello which, in March 2017, sold the majority to L Cattertan, the largest global consumer-focused private equity fund, linked to the LVMH luxury group. The choice had as its objective the international development of the Treviso-based company and rewarded the courageous strategy implemented by Fausto Pinarello.
The second concerns the brand specializing in sports cycling clothing Passion, the first brand in Italy to be sold only online. In its third year of business, it aims to close 2019 with a turnover of more than 5 million euros, coming mainly from markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Northern Europe.
The authors wonder what the intentions of the other Italian entrepreneurs are, certainly taken aback by these operations and alarmed by them. So what can be done to preserve Italian excellence?
Santilli and Soldavini advise to aggregate them and make them converge in a pole of quality cycling, inspired by the global luxury model represented by LVMH, a group present in the five most important sectors of the luxury market: wines and spirits, fashion and leather goods, perfumes and cosmetics, watches and jewellery, with 75 maisons and a turnover, in 2017, of 46.8 billion euros.
Unfortunately, most of the entrepreneurs interviewed by the authors declare themselves convinced that there will always be people in the world who will buy their products. Santilli and Soldavini then ask themselves, and the reader with them, on what basis this certainty is based, also in consideration of the large groups able to penetrate the market globally, to carry out research and development with funds equal to the entire turnover of Italian companies, ready "to diversify or worse to enter sectors that still see a certain Italian leadership".
Instead of taking refuge in now obsolete positions and views, the combination of tradition and innovation should be exalted and an eye to the future, which is already present considering the rapidity with which the market and consumers evolve. In summary it should ride faster to stay or stay one step ahead of the others and not be satisfied with being one step behind in the belief that beyond that one cannot retreat.
La scarce and belated attention paid to the “e-bike phenomenon", the substantial lack of interest in city mobility and the connected "smart city phenomenon”, the underestimation of cycling tourism and the potential of the so-called “cycling for all” have led, according to the analysis by Santilli and Soldavini, to relegating most of the Italian producers to niches almost exclusively dedicated to competitive cycling and competitive amateurs, which but they are a minimal percentage of the market.
Instead, we should look and maybe to copy the increasingly frequent partnerships, from which for the moment the Italian producers seem to be cut off. Partnerships such as the one drawn up between BMW and Mercedes for pedal assisted bikes and the projects of “cycling paths of the future".
Without ignoring or underestimating a factor that is instead very relevant, namely that of the new corners. Subjects hitherto unrelated to operate in this sector who have well understood its potential and who possess entrepreneurial, managerial and financial skills "unknown to those who have been working in the sector for decades”, as many Italian entrepreneurs seem to be.
bike economy. Journey to the pedaling world by Gianluca Santilli and Pierangelo Soldavini, published by Egea-UniBocconi First edition in September 2019, it's an amazing read. The reader certainly does not expect to find all the information that the authors have managed to find and organize in an orderly and interesting way. A detailed analysis of the so-called “bicycle economy” which amazes even those who thought they knew the details thoroughly, as Beppe Conti himself admits in the preface to the book.
