Italian, independent, industrial and family-run. These are the characteristics of the 3.316 medium-sized enterprises examined by Mediobanca and Unioncamere in the survey for the period 2006-2015, from which it emerges that the strongest Italian productive fabric is exactly the one linked to the medium-sized enterprise, the one that has better resisted the crisis and which – unlike small and large companies, which are less productive than European ones – does better than the other continental competitors.
If it is therefore true that small is not beautiful, the best does not always and only come from the big one: "Growing, for the medium size, is not an obligation, data in hand", explains Barbaresco, director of Mediobanca's Research Department, who however also points out that "the tendency must be to grow, because consequently productivity increases". In the decade 2006-2015, i.e. in the years essentially of the great crisis, medium-sized Italian companies, those with a workforce between 50 and 499 units and a sales volume between 16 and 355 million euros, are those that have seen the greatest percentage growth of profitability and turnover: among the aggregates examined by Mediobanca, in addition to them, only those of Made in Italy were virtuous, while public companies did badly and the large manufacturing groups made turnover but not operating margin. “Turnover – noted Barbaresco – has grown by 25%, more than three times that of medium-large and large size manufacturing (+8%)”.
After all, the numbers of this Italian production base leave no room for misunderstandings: according to the Mediobanca-Unioncamere survey, they represent 18% of the added value of Italian manufacturing, 62% of Made in Italy production, in the decade under examination they turnover doubled, exports increased by 176% and employees by 28,6%, while in the same period Italian manufacturing as a whole lost added value by 7,6% and lost 16,7% of employees. Medium-sized companies also excel in financial solidity: over 70% of them are considered investment grade, only 2,8% are rated as fragile. 38% mainly deal with mechanics, one of the trump cards of Made in Italy, then 21,4% with personal and household goods, 14,4% with chemicals and pharmaceuticals ( in particular the cosmetic pharmaceutical), the new Italian excellence that relegates food to fourth place with 13,9%. In contraction publishing and metallurgy.
“The contribution of medium-sized Italian industrial enterprises to the country's manufacturing – Barbaresco explains – is not limited to added value: they also represent 18,8% of turnover and 18,5% of exports”. Data which also recorded higher values before the 2008 crisis, but which started from 12-15% twenty years ago, when they began to be examined. For 2017, Mediobanca expects a "significant increase" in turnover for 53% of companies, while less than one in ten will register a decrease. Ditto for exports: 90% of the companies examined will have either an increase or a stationary figure, and 90% of them export, obtaining more than half of their turnover.
But where are these companies located, in Italy and abroad? Almost all in the North and Central-North. In the North (including Liguria and Emilia-Romagna) they account for 80% of the total, concentrated above all between Lombardy and Veneto, 11,6% is in the Tuscany-Marche-Umbria triangle and less than one in ten is located in the South. As far as subsidiaries abroad are concerned, the tendency to relocate outside Europe has grown since 1998: in 1998 two out of three subsidiaries were in the EU, today they are half, with Asia which has risen almost to 20%. “But the trend – explained the director of the Mediobanca Research Office – is to bring production back to Italy. Every ten production sites of medium-sized enterprises are located in the national territory, and the drive towards delocalization was already exhausted in 2012”. And foreign production bases are not necessarily in countries with low labor costs: only 55% are in developing countries, the rest in mature economies. Exports, on the other hand, remain mainly oriented to the EU market (87%, +10% in 2017) and the USA (31,7%, +18% in 2017): China is growing more slowly (17,8%, +4 % in 2017), Russia decreased (7,7%, -5% in 2017).
Finally, the challenge of technological innovation and the so-called Industry 4.0. “This year's focus on Industry 4.0 – said Ivan Lo Bello, president of Unioncamere – confirms that the majority of medium-sized enterprises questioned are aware of the key role of digital transformation for competitiveness”. In fact, 61% of them will access the tax credit provided for by the law for investments in innovation, even if the Unioncamere survey shows that less than half of them are dealing with the issue in a structured way. 24,5% of medium-sized enterprises invest in research and development, even if often these are not significant investments, and many of the others are still unaware of the 4.0 revolution: only 20% have started projects, 6,4% has already widely introduced them, but above all it emerges that 34,2% have no knowledge of them and 7,4% have not even faced the problem yet.
On the subject of occupational risk, Unioncamere established that thanks to innovation, employed persons will not decrease in 27% of cases, will increase in 14,4% of cases (+21,1% in the case of skilled workers), will decrease only in 8,3% of cases. But above all, the productivity of the employed will increase by 30,7%: "Industry 4.0 - concluded Lo Bello - will allow for greater success from an economic point of view and to increase the qualifications of its employees".
To close the presentation was the president of Mediobanca R&D, Giorgio La Malfa, according to which the survey testifies that for medium-sized Italian companies “the crisis is now behind us. There is room for growth for the Italian economy, but a big question remains: beyond the virtuosity of medium-sized enterprises, can Italy really do without the large ones?”.
