Bernardo Bertoldi

Bringing gourmet coffee to India: lessons of an Italian firm in an emerging market

Purpose: – The increasing importance of branding has been highlighted by many authors and there is a general absence of a clearly defined approach taken by companies to penetrate emerging markets with their brands, especially with reference to the Indian market. This paper aims to investigate brand strategies implemented by food and beverage firms going international and, in particular, to determine how to build the brand strategy on entering emerging markets through acquisitions.Design/methodology/approach – The authors had the opportunity to follow the operation conducted by the Lavazza Company in India for three years (2007‐2010), although the majority of the interviews were done in the first two years of the research. The research focused on the brand strategy for the specific case of the Lavazza Company by using a qualitative approach based on interviews with the Lavazza Management. The first session of interviews was carried out during 2007‐2008 with two objectives: to understand the Lavazza Company...

Fiat-Chrysler deal: looking for a good returns from M & A

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the cross-border acquisition’s process through the Fiat-Chrysler case. Many automotive companies have considered cross-border mergers and acquisition (M & A) as a necessary step to face increasing competition and globalization, but only few of them were successful. In particular, some best practices in terms of lessons-learned are highlighted. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on the analysis of a cross-border acquisition: the qualitative approach allows authors to better understand all the dynamics, complexities and problems that characterize companies facing this process (Yin, 1984). Authors used public information, Internet sources and Fiat’s documents to gather all the necessary information. Findings – In a cross-border acquisition, compatibility and complementarity of products and markets are fundamentals, whereas unmanaged cultural differences, as well as misunderstanding of the real motivations, are a slow but deadly poison: integrati...

Managing Professional Firms: How Partner Compensation Supports Strategic Choices

This article presents a study about professional firms’ partner compensation system based on the ‘pie-splitting’ research conducted by David Maister in 1987 among American law firms. Greater internal demands from professionals and higher quality of services required by clients induce professional firm leaders to reflect about their managerial structure, internal processes and human capital development (DeLong, Gabarro & Lees, 2007). On one side, we find partners’ ambitions and associates’ development needs that often are not being met; on the other side, we have clients expecting a higher level of customization, being helped in areas where firms may have little or no expertise; moreover, new types of relationship are emerging moving from a professional-client toward a firm-client relationship. A key topic to be addressed in order to better understand strategic dilemmas of professional firms is partner compensation. In the literature, the most important issue seems to be how to equitably reward partners considering external and internal criteria. Partners’ performance should be compensated balancing different criteria such as competences, seniority, values, reputation, volume of business (Jarrett-Kerr, 2006; Millard, 2003) and comparing partners in relation to each other. It is also important that a professional service firm’s compensation system identifies and rewards the key behaviours that are aligned to the strategy of their firm (Millard, 2003). The aim of the study is to help professional firms’ managers in defining the criteria for partners compensation in order to support internal and external strategy of their firm. The authors will refer to the study of compensation practices among law firms conducted by David Maister. He identified seven archetypal partners of a standard firm and provided quantitative and descriptive information on each. Those who participated in the study were asked to indicate what the compensation would be for each archetype in their firm, relative to the compensation of an average partner. The goal of this research is to expand Maister’s study to the Italian professional firms and verify whether the same results gained by Maister will be obtained in a different context. The sample has been defined following a dimensional criterion and the top 100 Italian professional law firms have been selected to be included in the survey. In particular, on one side, the authors intend to identify the skills and behaviours mostly rewarded in professional firms and to test whether there are differences in the criteria that firms consider in splitting the partnership pie; on the other side, the authors would like to test whether the compensation system applied by a professional firm is designed in a way that is supports the firm’s strategic decisions.

The role of a knowledge leader in a changing organizational environment. A conceptual framework drawn by an analysis of four large companies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of knowledge leader readiness within large companies operating in a changing environment. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework emerged from an analysis of four large companies and a review of the knowledge management literature. Secondary research was conducted to compare the four large companies against the proposed framework. Findings The conceptual model is a support to understand an organizations’ reaction to external changes and the role of the knowledge leader’s readiness in managing these changes and adjusting the knowledge management accordingly. From the analysis, it emerged that a knowledge leader’s readiness plays a relevant role in a changing organizational environment owing to his ability to acquire, handle and diffuse knowledge within the company. Practical implications The study emphasizes the significance of internal knowledge in managing changes. Practitioners could use this framework as a conceptual guide for their daily challenges and to recruit future leaders. Originality/value This study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by providing a practical model for organizations facing a changing environment. The originality of the model is the design of different managerial profiles that combine the leaders’ disposition to knowledge and their ability to drive change.

Strategic pricing management in the omnichannel era

The omnichannel era is arriving faster than expected and some of its players are disrupting the fashion industry. Although there is in the hands of managers an incredible richness of data and a huge computing power, the literature has not developed models to approach the new pricing environment. The present models are rigid, based on historical data and focused on internal variables, moreover almost no one has been applied in the real word by real decision making managers. In this article, we applied a flexible, forward looking and fuzzy based model with real management decisions attached and we proved that, leveraging technology, strategic pricing management is a (the) key marketing variable in the omnichannel world to manage demand.

Analisi delle performance delle aziende familiari e non familiari nel settore manifatturiero Piemontese

Obiettivi . L’articolo si propone di verificare se le imprese familiari che operano nel settore manifatturiero piemontese performano meglio di quelle non familiari in termini di fatturato e redditivita. Metodologia . Per studiare e capire le performance del settore manifatturiero e stato costruito un campione di 2000 aziende piemontesi (1396 familiari e 604 non familiari). Da queste sono poi state successivamente analizzate solo le aziende appartenenti al settore manifatturiero (383 familiari e 126 non familiari). Per l’analisi quantitativa dei dati, sono stati utilizzati indicatori economici utili a valutare le performance di tali imprese, familiari e non familiari, che operano in diversi settori (campione complessivo piemontese) e successivamente i risultati ottenuti sono stati confrontati con quelli delle aziende appartenenti al settore manifatturiero. Risultati . L’analisi quantitativa dei dati ha messo in evidenza un trend simile fatto registrare dalle aziende familiari e non familiari piemontesi e quello delle aziende familiari e non familiari appartenenti al settore manifatturiero piemontese. In entrambi i campioni le aziende non familiari sono piu grandi (per fatturato e numero medio di dipendenti), ma in valori assoluti il ROI, ROE e ROS fanno registrare performance migliori nelle aziende familiari. Le aziende familiari, inoltre, nell’ultimo anno disponibile, 2012, hanno fatto registrare una ripresa migliore rispetto alle aziende non familiari. Limiti della ricerca . Uno spunto per future ricerche riguarda la possibilita di ampliare l’analisi quantitativa a un numero piu elevato d’imprese estendendo l’analisi a un campione rappresentativo di tutta l’Italia. Implicazioni pratiche . I risultati ottenuti da questa ricerca contribuiscono ad ampliare le conoscenze pratiche in materia di performance nelle aziende familiari del settore manifatturiero, infatti non sono presenti molti studi di analisi quantitative che analizzino il rapporto settore manifatturiero/imprese familiari. Originalita del lavoro . Il settore manifatturiero rappresenta un importante punto di forza del nostro paese; la ricerca vuole mettere in evidenza la reazione alla crisi economica delle imprese familiari piemontesi che operano in tale settore, mettendo in luce eventuali differenze tra le logiche che guidano le aziende familiari e quelle che guidano le aziende non familiari.

Predicting Entrepreneurship from Financial Statements: Three Draft Criteria

At the end of a three-step approach combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the authors of this study suggest to recur to these three criteria in order to at least partially predict the entrepreneurial posture of a company on the basis of its financial statements: turnovers growth and assets renewal of at least 33% over the past three years and a three year EBIT sum at least equal to 0. Further testing of the three criteria is finally suggested.