Italy has great potential and the conditions for getting back on track “do exist”. “What we need is confidence and a bit of stability, and I am sure that results will follow. Italians are fantastic”. Ferruccio Ferragamo, president of the eponymous group, speaks in an interview with PEI NEWS and the Farnesina Multimedia service in the margins of the meeting “Conversations in the Library” organised by the foreign ministry’s Analysis, Planning and Historic Diplomatic Documentation Unit (video of the interview).
“Not genius but tenacity makes winners”
Speaking of young people, Ferragamo underscores that keeping them out of work is “one of the problems that most harms” our country. “Not only today, but also in the future, because there is going to be a gap in productive and managerial forces that will not be easy to fill. I have always been of the idea that it is not genius that makes winners but tenacity” he affirms, taking the example of his family and group, “and to be sure Ferragamo has not lacked in tenacity, from my parents down to all their children. The important thing is to have a clear vision of where you want to go and how to get there and not to give up until it pays off”.
Producing in Italy
The president of the historic company is convinced that there can be production in Italy. “Of course, we have much more stringent rules than other countries, neighbouring ones and in the Far East. But we must not give up, and allow ourselves to accept a bit of help in becoming more competitive. With the help of production cost incentives, Italy would go back to being an extremely important source of production. I hope that the current difficulties are transient, we have to hope that”.
Results require combined desires and efforts
Regarding which markets to work on, he explains, “there are emerging countries that still have their own problems but that could become” major points of reference. From India to Brazil to Mexico – a “very important country for us, and in seventh place for Ferragamo exports”. But results call for combined desires and efforts. “In every country we have been in we have had the pleasure of being assisted by wonderful people in the various embassies and consulates”, the president recalls, “to whom we explained our needs, goals and what we were looking for. There was a clear desire to listen to our difficulties and help us resolve them. I believe this is the formula for gaining access to various markets, and for finding the ingredients for success. I believe”, Ferragamo concludes, “that Italian business persons should have a system that unites us in more energetically, unequivocally and efficiently confronting markets as a cohesive block”.
