Family businesses, profitability quadrupled in five years

They know little about it, but they believe in it: around 80% of the 745 family businesses classified as 'excellent' by Global Strategy's SME Observatory say they are willing to implement solutions based on artificial intelligence, which 43% see as a major development opportunity. Yet, only 19% of them claim to be familiar with these issues.

An apparent contradiction that, in reality, says a lot about the open attitude to innovation and risk that has enabled Italian SMEs to face the repeated crises of the last four years and come out stronger, helping to make Italy the second largest manufacturer in Europe and one of the main exporting countries globally.

The numbers that tell of this excellence and strength come from the Observatory of Global Strategy, a strategic consulting and M&A company focused on family businesses, which has been monitoring the Italian Mid-Cap landscape since 2009. The 14th edition, carried out in partnership with Azimut Direct and Assolombarda, analysed the financial statements for the five-year period 2018-2022 of over 70 thousand companies, arriving at a selection of 745 qualified as 'excellent' on the basis of stringent economic-financial performance parameters. Companies with revenues between 25 and 25 million, Italian-owned and almost all family-run.

Largely concentrated in Northern Italy and in the manufacturing sector, these companies have demonstrated an 'exceptional capacity for growth' in the period considered, explained Stefano Nuzzi, Equity partner Global Strategy, explaining the research. In fact, in the post-pandemic period, they have managed to double the value of production (+103% between 2020 and 2022, against the +47% of SMEs that do not fall within the definition of 'excellent'), while since 2018, operating income has even quadrupled (+300% against 68% for other SMEs). Over the five years considered, employment has also increased (+46%), as has investment in innovation: 76% of the approximately €10 billion aggregate profit has been reinvested in the company; 50% allocate more than 5% of turnover to research and development; 60% invest in achieving ESG objectives. Not to mention the decisive role in the growth of Italian exports, given the high degree of internationalisation of these companies, a third of which realise more than half of their revenues abroad.

Finally, the lunge on artificial intelligence, as mentioned considered a tool destined to radically change production processes and on which excellent companies say they are open to experiment, but which is still little known and implemented. "Technology will offer great opportunities in the coming years, which companies must learn to manage by developing appropriate skills and investing in human resources, which will increasingly constitute the true differentiating value for leveraging the application of artificial intelligence-based technologies," said Antonella Negri-Clementi, CEO and founder of Global Strategy. Innovation also concerns the financial instruments adopted to support growth, with a progressive opening up by SMEs for alternative finance solutions that until a few years ago were the exclusive prerogative of large companies, as highlighted by Antonio Chicca, managing director of Azimut Direct.