One of the
companies that introduced the profession of consultant to Italy was established
in Bologna. We are talking about Bonfiglioli Consulting which boasts around one
hundred resources distributed in 12 offices worldwide achieving a turnover of
€9.5 million. The objective is to help companies implement change projects. For
FARE Insieme, Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Michele Bonfiglioli, CEO at
Bonfiglioli Consulting
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
This is the
story of a company based on a profession which, at the time of its
establishment in the 1970s, represented a true innovation for Italy. A job that
was almost created from zero. But a new way of conceiving work can also be read
between the lines of this story. Because the job of consultant, which was
partly unknown at the time and which is now essential, helps strengthen the
market and turnover. Consultants are allies for managers and entrepreneurs -
they listen, advise, support. “My father Romano, one of the first consultants
in Italy, was always convinced of this. There were no consultants in Bologna in
the 1970s. But my father, who passed away in 2020, was curious by nature,
fascinated by Adriano Olivetti’s business approach and tired of being an
employee. So, in 1973, he founded this company,” reminisces Michele
Bonfiglioli, CEO at Bonfiglioli Consulting, a company that boasts around one
hundred employees distributed in 12 offices worldwide achieving a turnover of
€9.5 million. Now, the business helps companies implement change projects. The
objective is to help them grow and strengthen their presence on the global
markets.
People at the centre. But what
is really striking about the history of this Bolognese company is its
capability of constantly rethinking itself, interpreting change and maintaining
a coherence between what is said and what is done. “We have changed over time,
we have grown and diversified our offer of services as well as our sectors of
reference: we started with the automotive industry, then included the entire
manufacturing sector, including Food&Beverages and Life Sciences,” stresses
Bonfiglioli. This 47-year-old entrepreneur, with scientific training yet a
passion for classical themes, started working for the company after training
and work experience abroad in the UK and US. He maintains the original
awareness that work is done with people and between people, so they must be valued,
involved, understood. “I am all for a pragmatic, concrete and rational
approach. To make things happen, you need to convince people. People must
absolutely be put at the centre,” clarifies Bonfiglioli. The headquarters are
currently located in Casalecchio di Reno, a town of forty thousand people in
the Bologna metropolitan area. Then there are offices in Milan and Padua as
well as abroad in the US, India and Vietnam. The world of consultancy is wide,
diversified, it presents many nuances, but the adherence to data, to
contingency and numbers make the difference. “You must always understand the
real and practical benefit for clients. From the reduction of turnover to
improving the climate, to economic results and external outputs - our
intervention must bring about measurable change to companies,” says
Bonfiglioli.
Present and
future. Being
able to anticipate the times, with vision and concreteness. Eight years ago,
the company launched the Lean Factory School®, an innovative
training school to experience Digital Transformation first hand. A way to
transform training from theory into dynamic-practice. “After all, knowing how to do things
characterizes the Emilian character is the base of the ‘try and error’ culture,
a proactive approach that implies determination, resilience and passion. The pandemic represented an important
challenge for services offered to companies. We had to experiment new ways of
working, such as remote consultancy. But all this represented training ground
that enabled us to find new ideas with which to offer innovative solutions to
our clients. Managing to cope with unforeseen events and surprises is the
winning key to compete and grow in the volatile markets of today and tomorrow.
This is also the distinctive trait of Italians in general. The Key Success
Factor of company organisation today. Traditionally, company organisation
strategy have German, American and Japanese matrices and are based on planning,
clarity and stability. The challenge is managing to combine the strictness of
method with flexibility and a capability to adapt,” stresses Bonfiglioli.
But today, what
counts more to be a successful company - human capital, innovative systems, the
sense of community and corporate value culture or something else? Bonfiglioli
has no doubt about this - the individual approach is what makes the difference,
which is reflected in working community. “A motivational push. You need to have a challenging yet not
impossible arrival point. We are the partners of reference for Italian companies
with a strong international presence. These businesses - with a turnover of
between €150 million and €2 billion - are the backbone of our industrial
fabric. For sector companies, it will be important to link with these national
champions, thinking about the world and not just Italy, focusing on the search
for sustainability, investments on digitalization and on the attention for
young talents,” concludes Bonfiglioli. Once again, people shape the companies
of the future.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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