Today's economic situation, after a long period of recession and a hint of recovery, is particular, just as complex as that which characterized the end of the Middle Ages. When the foundations of the current family business system were laid. This is the parallelism used by the president of Censis, Giuseppe De Rita, during the conference 'Family businesses in the Italian economy' organized by the University of Rome Lumsa and the Telos Foundation, to explain the centrality of a reality, that of 'family business to be precise, which has survived for a good 700 years and is the cornerstone of "our history".
How are we today? De Rita wondered and asked the audience. The answer is in small and medium enterprises which, despite many difficulties, are doing well. Consider that out of 7000 companies, about 4000 are family businesses (equal to 56%). And “these are not companies or second-class 'stuff', they are realities with over 50 million in turnover a year”.
“Currently – commented the president of Censis – there is a sort of drunkenness in announcing that small businesses will not be able to innovate and therefore survive. There is a distortion in stating that family entrepreneurship is linked to undeclared work and tax evasion. But family businesses are a reality”.
According to De Rita, it is wrong to speak of amoral familism or dwarfism to define small companies. These are vital structures, often growing and projected towards medium-sized companies. “On the other hand – explained the president – if family entrepreneurship has managed to resist the strong economic crisis it is because it possesses those three 'medieval' factors of fundamental importance: the peasant skeleton, typical of our country, the mercantile one and a solid artisan base, albeit with the due temporal differences (today we can speak of digital artisans)”.
If Italy has experienced and is experiencing a deep recession, the cause is not to be found in the "small businessman", but in the public debt or in the uneducated middle class or in having spent more than what was possible in the past. And they seem to echo the thriving 80s when public spending was loose.
"We need to trust family businesses - concluded De Rita - and support them financially, remembering that these are the only ones capable of maintaining a relationship with the territory and a relationship with time". Because only locally rooted companies are able to go ahead, as Diego Della Valle also claimed in an interview a few days ago. And since only medium and small companies are not "sick of short time", living in the long term without waiting for stock market listings.
Why do family businesses matter? Because, as the secretary general of Unioncamere Claudio Gagliardi has argued, especially with reference to the Fourth Capitalism of medium-sized enterprises (see link 1) since 2000, their aggregate balance sheet has always been in profit. The roi is one third higher than that of the major Italian groups. Exports account for 47% of turnover and 57% of sales are obtained in non-EU markets.
It is precisely the family that creates employment for different reasons: to place or relocate professionally (50%), to exploit their knowledge or skills in the reference market (48%), for personal and economic success (8%), to exploit an innovative idea (4%), for tax breaks (3%).
“Small businesses – concluded Gagliardi – are also the ones most attentive to the environment and eco-sustainability”.
To help family businesses in crisis, a proposal based on the increase and strengthening of the guarantee fund was put forward by Zeno Rotondi of Unicredit. 50 million partial guarantees to benefit multiple sectors (see link 2).
The conference was attended by the Rector of Lumsa, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, the president of the Telos Foundation, Giovanni Castellani, the professor of Economic Policy of Lumsa, Luigino Bruni, the general commander of the Guardia di Finanza, Saverio Capolupo, the councilor of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Carlo Piccinini.
Attachments: soc_fam_new.pdf http://firstonline-data.teleborsa.it/news/files/896.ppt
