A company destined to leave its mark was set up in Cento, in the Ferrara province, during the Second postwar period, led by the charisma of its founder. Today, Motori Bonora boasts a turnover of €11 million and employs 40 people with 30% of the volume produced coming from European countries such as Germany, Spain and Holland. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Diego Bonora, CEO of Motori Bonora
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
How many lives does one life include? Well, it depends on the life we are referring to. The one we are about to describe includes multiple different ones. It is an entrepreneurial life made up of a thousand intuitions, unbridled passion, a lot of dedication and plenty of courage. Because, in order to tell the story of Motori Bonora, we cannot but start with the person who ignited that flame, stoked it over the years and aimed at international markets that were unthinkable in the beginning.
Company history. How many lives has Giorgio Bonora lived? He was a Cento entrepreneur born in 1925 and one of the protagonists of that Cento economic miracle that occurred during the Second postwar period. His father Ferruccio was a butcher and his mother Ada Roncarati was a housewife. After primary school, he attended the Fratelli Taddia Professional School, a hotbed for enlightened technicians. Giorgio was not the mellow type. While at school, he repaired electric motors and even trained some of the younger students in a classroom made available by the school. Then he started with the artisanal production of electric motors in a dedicated warehouse, and sold them travelling tens of thousands of kilometres in an old Topolino car filled with motors and… hope. He founded Motori Bonora in 1945 which proved the watershed year. A few years later, together with his brothers Adrasto and Angiolino, he set up a second smelting cast iron foundry. Later, still not satisfied with this, he strengthened his experience as an entrepreneur by becoming the owner of Biliardi Orsi, a historic Cento pool table company founded by the Orsi brothers. In addition, in partnership with his friend Giulio Bargellini, he founded Politec for the production of plastic alloys which is still active. It was 1952 when Motori Bonora projected itself towards industrial production following the purchase of some land in the former Gambetta sawmill area, now via Righi, which was owned by the Cento hospital at the time. There he set up a modern facility for the production of motors. Processing was entirely carried out by the various internal departments: foundry, die casting, punching, winding, mechanical processing and painting. One thing led to another and, in 1970, the company came to employ up to 110 people and covered an area of almost 9,000 sq m in via Righi. What a time and what stats! In 1992, Giorgio Bonora passed away and the company was taken over by his son Diego who radically reorganised the production process to become more competitive and improve market presence, even on the foreign markets. In 1998, the company moved to via Reno Vecchio where it is still located, but Chinese competition became increasingly pressing in the 2000s. In order to keep operating as a manufacturer, the company changed strategy and started aiming at niche markets.
Company profile. From yesterday to today. The company looks ahead to the Industry 4.0 while keeping its roots in Cento and renewing its commitment in the territory. In short, the company still specialises in the production of asynchronous electric motors and is controlled and managed by the second generation of the Bonora family. A few figures: a turnover of €11 million with 40 employees. Today, approximately 30% of the volume produced is destined for export, especially to Germany, Spain and Holland. Motori Bonora’s clients include highly-exporting companies, therefore most of the production is still destined – also indirectly – for the foreign markets. Customisation is at the centre and becomes a quality that makes the company stand out. In fact, the focus on customised products, often designed based on the specific needs of clients, pushed the company to allocate considerable resources to R&D and to the technical department. “Although often in contrast with market trends, we have increasingly focused on Italian-made products. Today, almost all our suppliers are Italian. As part of our industrial strategy - pursued with the utmost respect for the environment in mind - in 2010, we set up a photovoltaic plant that enables us to self-produce a great deal of the energy necessary for our activities,” reports Diego Bonora, CEO of Motori Bonora. Of course the context is complex, the economy fluctuates and markets are uncertain, so all companies must all improvise during this phase. But Motori Bonora tries to make adjustments to make new propositions. “We are connected to cars and their manufacturers so we are experiencing a downward phase and are registering market uncertainties. We have also experienced a great change with the arrival of the Chinese and their imported products. The market is saturated. That is why we have opted to focus on customised solutions from a mechanical and electrical point of view,” stresses Bonora. Making a virtue out of necessity, one might say. The challenge for companies capable of looking towards the future is a dual one, i.e. to preserve their identity while constantly reinventing themselves.
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