All about us: the story of SIT. The development of a sustainable, innovative and technological family firm

This book has had a long gestation period, which has given us the opportunity to witness some changes in strategy and organization as they happened. Over the last five years these have literally changed SIT’s profile, opening up development paths that were unimaginable until a few years ago. The interview with the entrepreneur with which the book begins mirrors this evolution, in which family dynamics, business needs, and competitive and environmental scenarios are intertwined and trace the path along which SIT's history unfolds. The acceleration that the company has experienced in recent years and the importance and topicality of the turning points it has passed (from the listing on the stock exchange of a company with a family imprint to its digital transformation, from the pursuit of sustainability to the revision of its vision and mission) run the risk of obscuring the glorious past to which today's SIT is deeply indebted. Precisely in order to maintain a certain balance between past and present, this book is organized by themes, for each of which the salient features that have distinguished SIT's history have been identified. The first theme concerns entrepreneurship, interpreted throughout the book bearing in mind that SIT has borne and continues to bear a strong family imprint. Chapter 1 (Entrepreneurship, Family and Governance) focuses on the figures of the founders––the brothers Pier Luigi and Giancarlo de' Stefani––their entrepreneurial profile and the early managerial approach they sought, successfully, to apply to their company. The managerial turnaround of the early '70s generated a series of effects on relations among the members of the family and on the firm’s governance structures: the two founders’ decision is still relevant today and, in terms of method, remains an important model for many other family-owned companies. The second theme is the constant attention to human capital, which today's SIT has inherited from that of the founders. Chapter 2 (Human Capital and Organization) analyzes some practices of management, enhancement and development of human capital and some choices of an organizational nature. The experiences, accumulated over the last twenty years, are of particular interest because they confirm the close link between strategic choices, organizational structure options, operational systems design and the management of human resources. The third theme focuses on growth and Internationalization, which is also the title of Chapter 3. The de' Stefani family has made growth on the global stage the key to its way of understanding the leadership of the company. It has invested in specific competencies to achieve this goal and has deliberately achieved leadership positions in the various segments in which it is present (abandoning, in an equally deliberate manner, those areas in which this goal was not attainable). In this chapter the focus is on the method followed by SIT and on the reasons (theoretical as well as practical) that explain certain strategic options for growth along internal, but above all external lines (through M&A) and their evolution over time. On this front, too, what SIT has done can serve as a reference for many other companies. The fourth theme is strategy and, in particular, the characteristics of SIT’s strategic path over the decades, encompassing diversification, consolidation, focus and the search for new business areas in which to express the potential of the portfolio of skills that the company has developed over time in the light of changes in technology and the environment. Chapter 4 (Consolidation, Focus and Sustainability) illustrates the most significant turning points and analyzes strategic choices made in 2020 that open up new scenarios for the company's development. The Data & Facts section at the end of the book shows the company’s main economic and financial indicators and can be consulted to understand, at a glance, the firm’s evolution over time.