The fifth Intesa Sanpaolo-Mediocredito Italiano Observatory on business networks takes a snapshot of the situation of a growing tool, but still largely a minority among Italian businesses, analyzing it in its various facets.
As at 1 October 2014, 1.770 network contracts were registered in the Chamber of Commerce in which 9.129 companies were involved. Of these, 1.226 (13,4% of the total) were included in 173 networks with legal subjectivity.
The networks phenomenon has shown a progressive acceleration in recent years. In 2011, an average of 326 companies joined the network in each quarter; in 2012 it rose to 576, in 2013 to 891 and in the first nine months of 2014 to 793. The acceleration in the two-year period 2013-2014 concerned contract networks and, above all, subject networks. In fact, in the first nine months of 2014, the number of companies that entered subject networks rose to 179 on average per quarter, 22,6% of the total.
Furthermore, the number of contracts affected by corporate transformations is growing: at the beginning of October 2014, in fact, the networks featuring the entry of new companies rose to 113 (6,4% of the total). The tool, therefore, in addition to showing high flexibility in terms of objectives and organization, proves to be open to the entry and/or exit of entrepreneurial players from the network.
The regional ranking continues to be led by Lombardy with 2.019 companies in the network, while Emilia Romagna consolidates its second position with 1.128 companies. In third place is Tuscany with 982 companies involved. Approximately 45% of Italian companies on the network are located in these three regions.
At the provincial level, Milan excels with 667 companies; followed by Rome (444) and Brescia (348). Despite the strong development observed in recent years, the degree of diffusion of network contracts is still relatively limited compared to the whole of the productive fabric. Abruzzo is the most active region, with 0,46% of regional enterprises in the network. At the Italian level it stops at 0,18%.
The degree of multi-territoriality of the networks is high: in fact, only in 7 regions does the share of mono-regional networks exceed 50%. If we go down to the provincial level, the result is even clearer: only in one province (Lecce) does the share of networks with companies in the same area exceed 50%.
Among the top 20 provinces by number of goals, only Brescia, Bari and Chieti show a percentage slightly higher than 30%. In Milan and Rome, the two provinces with the most contracts, the share of single-provincial networks is respectively 14,6% and 19,6%.
The degree of productive and dimensional differentiation is also very high. 83,9% of the contracts include companies specialized in various production sectors. More specifically, 55,5% of the networks is made up of companies belonging to different macro-sectors (agro-food, industry in the strict sense, construction, services), while 28,4% of the networks have companies from the same macro-sector within them but from different production sectors. Furthermore, just under one in three networks is made up of companies of the same size class. In particular, in 60% of Italian network contracts micro enterprises are active together with enterprises of another size class.
New confirmations therefore emerge of the high degree of complementarity of skills of the companies involved in the network contracts. Many networks have a wealth of technology and business expertise. In fact, networked manufacturing companies are more active abroad with export activities, subsidiaries and internationally registered trademarks, they innovate more and are more attentive to the environment.
In particular, the 1.274 companies that are part of the 244 green contracts mapped by us in Italy (13,8% of the total) and linked to environmental sustainability, understood as a commitment to renewable energies, energy saving, stand out for their strategic levers , in the reuse of materials, in the production of goods for environmental services, in the reduction of CO2 emissions and in energy requalification. In green contracts, 16,4% of companies have an environmental certificate in their portfolio, against 9,7% of network companies and 2,8% of non-network companies. Significant differences also emerge due to the diffusion of innovation and presence on international markets.
Environmental sustainability therefore appears to be an objective that can be achieved through the simultaneous presence of a plurality of strategic levers, which go beyond simple attention to the environment revealed by environmental certifications and which also include the ability to innovate and successfully control the markets foreign. The objectives of safeguarding the environment and developing technologies and goods with an environmental content can, in fact, only be achieved through a determined commitment to research and development. The presence on foreign markets, in the case of manufacturing companies, then allows them to make the most of the introduction of new products with low environmental impact.
Green networks are particularly widespread in the construction sector (construction, architecture and engineering firms, building services, real estate), where 386 companies out of a total of 1.423 companies in the network have signed green contracts (about 27%). The objectives of the networks in this chain are mainly aimed at the energy-environmental requalification of civil and tourist accommodation facilities and buildings and at environmental remediation. The degree of diffusion of green networks is also relatively high in some sectors of industry in the strict sense, such as utilities (33%), which are increasingly involved in the development and production from renewable sources, metallurgy (37,3% ), which through energy saving aims to reduce the high costs connected to the high energy intensity of the sector, and the automotive sector (33,3%), which over time has intensified its investments aimed at research and development of new motor vehicles low energy consumption.
In this issue of the Observatory we verified the effects of network contracts on the economic-income performance in 2012-2013 of the companies that entered the network during 2011. The descriptive statistics available still offer very weak signals: in the two-year period 2012-2013 the companies that were already online in 2011 showed a drop in turnover only slightly lower than that of non-networked businesses (-3,6% vs. -4,9%). The difference in their favor was even more pronounced in the three-year period 2009-2011 (+0,8% vs. -4%).
On the income front, however, the results are a little more visible, with a greater recovery for the companies involved in the network, which in terms of EBITDA margin have gained 2 tenths of a percentage point (rising to 7,9% in 2013 from 7,7 .2011% in 2) compared to the 7,8/7,6 lost by other companies (from 2011% to XNUMX%). The results presented here therefore do not allow us to draw firm conclusions on the effectiveness of network contracts, also because the analysis was conducted only on the few companies in the network at the end of XNUMX.
As we have seen, in fact, the network tool began to have a good diffusion from 2012, with a significant acceleration in the two-year period 2013-2014. It will therefore be necessary to wait for the 2014 financial statements to expand the sample of analyzes and draw more solid assessments on the effects of network contracts on the economic and income performance of companies.
Attachments: observatory of business networks_November 2014.pdf
