This is not yet another ranking of the best performing companies. The «Controvento» Observatory, edited by Nomisma in collaboration with Crif and Cribis and this year in its fourth edition, aims, if anything, at analyzing and interpreting the evolution of the Italian manufacturing system, determining how much and how some structural factors – such as geographical location, company size, belonging to specific sectors – guarantee companies a greater competitive capacity.
The results of the study
Well, from this year’s study (conducted on a sample of 73,000 Italian companies) it emerges that there are 5,198 companies «against the wind», i.e. resilient to the crisis and capable of demonstrating a better competitive capacity than the others, generate the 8.9% of total manufacturing revenues and 14% of added value. Furthermore, there are 380 so-called «Star» companies, that is, permanently present in all four editions of the survey.
Italy, explain the analysts who conducted the study, continues to present a two-speed manufacturing system, with a group of companies which, although representing a minority, is able to drive development and the Italian economy managing to obtain significant performances in the year in which the country regained a newfound normality.
From the aggregate analysis on the 2021 financial statements of the sample considered, it emerges that only 7.1% of the total companies manage to guarantee competitiveness parameters (in the previous survey they were 6.5%), i.e. revenue growth, industrial margins and creation of added value. Firms that sail “against the wind” continue to show a superior competitive capacity compared to those defined as “not against the wind”. However, in a context of generalized recovery in the year of the post-pandemic economic rebound (with GDP growth in 2021 of +6.7%) the performance gap between the two groups is shortening. Considering the revenues between 2016 and 2021, however, those of the 5,198 Controvento companies grew by 74%, while the others grew by 23%.
The characteristics of “upwind” companies
The survey shows that the incidence of the Controvento group of companies on total manufacturing remains the same in the years in which the Observatory was held, oscillating between 6% and 7% of the total of Italian companies. The distribution and relevance of size classes (micro, small, medium and large enterprises) within the group also remain almost identical. The degree of concentration is also constant among Controvento companies: 10% of the largest companies generate 68-69% of total revenues.