Passion for the family business and pride in one's profession but also innovation, internationalisation, taste for risk, openness to the market, long-term vision and - last but not least - love for one's country. You would like to meet an entrepreneur like this every day, but it's not a mirage. One of these is Luciano Bertani, 56, from Mantua from Castiglione delle Stiviere, managing director together with his brother Sergio and with other branches of the Bertani family at the helm of Bertani Trasporti, a leading company in Italy and Europe in car transporters, and more recently founder del Palato Italiano, an original gourmet club that aims to promote and spread quality Italian cuisine around the world. Entrepreneurs like Luciano Bertani do not like the limelight and prefer deeds to words, but on the rare occasions they speak they are never trivial. Here is the interview that Luciano Bertani gave to FIRSTonline.
FIRSTOnline – Mr. Bertani, you are the head of one of the major Italian groups of car transporters and car transporters, but for some years now you have diversified your investments in Italian food by founding the gourmet club "Il Palato Italiano": yours is a curious story and yours is a privileged observatory to take the pulse of Italy but also of the fourth capitalism of medium-sized enterprises and family capitalism in one of the richest areas of the country. What signals are coming from the car and transport market and from that of quality consumption such as that of food and wine?
BERTANI – The signs coming from the automotive industry, which has always been a driver of the Italian economy, are a clear recovery. After dark years, which unfortunately led to the collapse of families and businesses, today finally confidence and investments are back in the car and transport sector. Beyond the statistics, banks are once again giving credit to those who deserve it and car manufacturers, starting with FCA which is reaping the fruits of Sergio Marchionne's revolution, have the right models to satisfy customers. Looking at Italy from our point of view, these are reasons to have faith in the present and in the future.
FIRSTonline – Also for food and wine which is the core business of the Italian Palate?
BERTANI – Here the matter is a little different, because the encouraging signals for Made in Italy cuisine come more from outside than from our country, because the cycle of quality consumption has not yet fully restarted here and because the instability of work and income stagnation weigh on our families. But foreigners appreciate quality food and the Italian way of proposing it more and more every day. The demand for Italianness among gourmets in the world is impressive and this is why the reference market of the Italian palate is the world one rather than the national one. Beyond our borders we see interesting opportunities for those who know how to offer quality cuisine that knows how to intertwine with the history, culture and traditions of our country and the challenge they have launched goes exactly in this direction. We want to help Italy grow in the world also through quality cuisine, which is one of the excellences of our country that we don't always remember.
FIRSTonline – After so many years of recession, is there today a desire for revenge in the country and among entrepreneurs?
BERTANI – Yes, the desire for revenge is there, at all levels of the manufacturing world. But together with the desire for revenge, the crisis has taught everyone that recovery does not rain from heaven and that one can no longer live on one's laurels: reinventing oneself has become a categorical imperative for everyone and above all for companies, like ours, which are on the markets international markets and which have to deal with foreign competition.
FIRSTonline – In your case and in the case of Bertani Trasporti, the leading group of car transporters and international car transporters, what does it mean to reinvent yourself?
BERTANI – It mainly means three things: becoming aware of the global nature of the markets, studying people's habits and responding to needs that were not even imaginable five years ago; focus on quality and maximum attention to customer satisfaction, in every aspect; reconcile corporate strategies with the evolutionary trends of the Italian and European economy. This is why I am in love with my job which requires sacrifices and contemplates considerable risks, but which obliges you to know the trade, to find the right balance and to bet on teamwork: this is the great lesson that my father Guglielmo left me , who together with his brothers Mario and Renato (today Renato is the President of the Bertani Trasporti Group) was the architect of the birth and growth of Bertani, and is the key to our success.
FIRSTonline – Mr. Bertani, how did your entrepreneurial story begin and what is Bertani Trasporti today?
BERTANI – I am a second generation entrepreneur of a typical family capitalism company which was founded in the mid-50s and which has been able to renew itself over the decades becoming the leader in Italy in the transport of cars and one of the major operators in the sector of car transporters in Europe. Today we have 700 vehicles, more than a thousand employees, over 10 plants in Italy and others in Germany and Poland, a turnover that exceeds 200 million euros (70% in Italy and 30% abroad) and we work for all major car manufacturers, from FCA to Volkswagen, from Mercedes, Toyota, Ford to BMW, whose trust we have been able to gain and maintain over the years.
FIRSTonline – Your growth has been through internal lines, step by step, but last year you bought one of your major Italian competitors in the car transporter sector, the Elia of Turin: it is an exceptional fact or the desire for shopping can repeat itself ?
BERTANI – We've always grown organically and always paying attention to the balance between costs and benefits, but if an advantageous opportunity presents itself, we don't hold back: we've been courting Elia for years and as soon as there was the chance, we didn't we let it slip. It's a wonderful company, it has 350 employees and it has taught us to relate to customers who are different from ours: we are very happy with this operation.
FIRSTonline – Yours is the classic medium-large company of the so-called Fourth capitalism of family origin and usually companies like yours are more dynamic than the others, they are more stable, they have a medium-long term vision, but they can have problems of insufficient size or lack of capitalization in supporting growth and problems in opening up to the market and in generational turnover. How are things for Bertani Trasporti?
BERTANI – In the modern market, which is no longer national but European, growing has become an obligation also in the car transporter sector and we have demonstrated with the Elia that we are ready. How to finance growth? In the first place with internal resources: which means that every year the profits go mainly to strengthen the assets and that debts must be kept under strict control. For the future, we don't have any ideological prejudices about the Stock Exchange and we don't exclude it, but we know that the listing is a tool to grow, if it were to serve us, but not an end. This also shows us a path for relations with the market.
FIRSTonline – In what sense?
BERTANI – We cannot hide that one of the fortunes of our success has been the formidable cohesion of all branches of our family, an asset that must always be safeguarded in every way. This is why we need to pay close attention to the opening of share capital and the entry of external managers, but this is also why we say that, if they want, our children can work in Bertani but they have to win their job: they can stay with us not by right hereditary but if they demonstrate that they have the right passion, skills and balance to listen to and respect all workers.
FIRSTonline – At a certain point in your entrepreneurial history, you decided to invest in a completely different field and to found the Palato Italiano, a gourmet club that aims to promote Italian food and wine in the world through a multiplicity of activities ranging from organization of haute cuisine events to e-commerce, from telecooking to the recipe archive: why? How did this idea come about?
BERTANI – It is an idea that I focused on with my wife, who comes from a family of hoteliers in Madonna di Campiglio and who has considerable experience in the hospitality industry, and in fact Il Palato Italiano is an exclusively personal and not of Bertani Trasporti. At the basis of this new project, which was born at the end of 2014, there are mainly three reasons. The first is the desire to create an entrepreneurial training ground for my children and to teach them what it means to enter a small company and work to bring it to success and make it big, as it was for me in Bertani Trasporti. The second reason is to lend a hand to Italy in a field, such as food and wine, where it is second to none and which must be enhanced by selecting the right products and producers. The third reason is the internationality of the new entrepreneurial challenge that obliges Il Palato Italiano to grow abroad and to immediately intercept an international clientele starting from the Italian excellence of our cuisine.
FIRSTonline – Is that why you chose Bolzano as your headquarters?
BERTANI – Not only for this. Certainly Bolzano is at the right crossroads between Italy and Europe and can more easily attract quality customers from our country but also from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, but have chosen Bolzano because the Province and the Region of South Tyrol know how to attract investments and they did everything to facilitate our settlement, finding us the location in 30 days and simplifying the path and the times of the bureaucratic authorizations which in other areas of Italy have biblical durations.
FIRSTonline – How much have you invested in Palato Italiano and when do you expect to break even?
BERTANI – I like more to let the facts speak than to advertise my family investments, but I can say that I have invested in the Italian Palate, which we want to grow without anxiety of an immediate return, with the goal of a balanced budget within 3- 4 years.
FIRSTonline – What will be the next steps in the growth of the Italian Palate?
BERTANI – As I said before, the market for the Italian palate is the world and mainly the USA and North America, Latin America, Asia and of course Europe. The goal is to open some foreign offices over the next three years, very agile and streamlined but capable of becoming a stable point of reference for fans of Italian cuisine in all its aspects: in Florida, but not only, we are already well advanced . Consequently we are also open to the search for international partnerships which favor the expansion of the Italian palate on foreign markets but which also bring new professionalism to Italy. I think there will be news in the coming months.
FIRSTonline – But what exactly is the target of the Italian palate?
BERTANI – The identikit of the gourmet on which Il Palato Italiano focuses is a person between 40 and 60 years of age, of high culture, of good economic conditions, who loves good food and good living but also art, culture , the history and the territory. We must reach and attract him in a thousand ways and with a plurality of avant-garde communication initiatives and techniques that allow us to tell and make known to the world Italy, which exalts itself in taste, beauty, know-how, passion and competence with which he presents the products of his cuisine.
FIRSTonline – The fields of activity of Bertani Trasporti and Palato Italiano are completely different but is there a common thread?
BERTANI – Reliability, maximum attention and respect for the customer, quality, transparency, internationalization are values that inspire both the activity of Bertani Trasporti and that of the Italian Palate. But the launch of the Italian palate in a still difficult economic phase is something more and is a sign of confidence in Italy's recovery. If we Italians don't value our extraordinary cuisine and our food and wine, who should? In this field we are second to none. As Claudio Ranieri says, who has become an icon of world football by winning the English championship with little Leicester, "you must always believe in it" because, in the long run, quality wins.
FIRSTonline – There is vision and taste for risk in your words: are these the driving forces that prompted you to bet first on Bertani Trasporti and now on Palato Italiano?
BERTANI – Yes, the long-term vision and calculated risk are important in every entrepreneurial challenge. But there are also other values in the field that have always inspired me: the pride of belonging to a company experienced as a community in which there is always attention, respect and participation for everyone. The love for my family and for the company, the desire to live up to our fathers, the taste for innovation and work, the long-term vision and, let me tell you, also the passion for Italy and the desire to help change it: these are the points of reference that have always accompanied me and that accompany me every day.
FIRSTonline – Is the Renzi government helping to change Italy?
BERTANI – The prime minister's dynamism is impressive. I don't look at colors and flags but at facts. And it must be recognized that the Job Act has been very useful for businesses, that something is also being done to improve the Public Administration and services, that institutional reforms have been made, but I would like a quantum leap to be made in fiscal policy: not only to reduce taxes but to direct them in such a way as to favor investments and the many young people who want to become entrepreneurs of themselves. When I see thousands of young graduates or graduates queuing up for public competitions for a few places, it means that something is wrong. How is it possible that we spend so much to educate our kids and then the best ones are forced to go abroad or can't find suitable jobs in Italy?
FIRSTonline – How do you explain it?
BERTANI – Italy has everything to recover but must call itself into question. A lot has been done in these two years of government but a lot remains to be done especially for the new generations and to enhance the desire for entrepreneurship that exists in the country. With the energy he has, Prime Minister Renzi should do more and think big. It would take a new Marshall Plan or another New Deal to open new frontiers for work, for entrepreneurship, for young people. We can become the top of the class but it's up to each of us to take up the challenge. And it's time to do it.
