Paolo Sironi: Here’s how Intesi Group won Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies Award for the third year
“A seal to the path of continuous and significant evolution strongly undertaken by our company for some years now“. This is how Paolo Sironi – Intesi Group Chairman and CEO – defines the 2023 Deloitte Best Managed Companies Award.
Why do you think so?
Competing for the BMC Award is a challenge that requires care and determination. Conquering it is therefore an achievement that is anything but easy or obvious. To succeed three years in a row, as we did, is an achievement that makes us proud. It is an award above all to the clarity of our vision for the business, the value of the strategies we have adopted, our sensitivity to ESG issues and consequent actions, and, last but not least, the skills and daily commitment of our people. It is very likely that, in the eyes of the Jury, it was the combination of all these factors that made us credible in the 6 evaluation areas provided: Strategy, Competence and Innovation, Commitment and Corporate Culture, Governance and Performance Measurement, Sustainability, and, finally, Internationalization.
What impact do you expect from this year’s award?
I am convinced that the BMC Award will continue to have relevance for Intesi Group on three dimensions:
- The first dimension is the rational one: an opportunity for me and the entire management to look in the mirror and reflect on the company, what it has achieved, and what new goals to aspire to.
- The second is emotional: success like this improves the corporate climate, strengthens the sense of belonging, rewards for hard work, and increases team spirit.
- The third dimension relates to the reputation and attractiveness of our brand. This is borne out by a small but significant anecdote: some time ago, during a business negotiation, the prospect revealed to us that Intesi Group had come back to mind because he had read about the recognition we had received and complimented us. Nothing strange except that it had already been a few months since the award, demonstrating that the benefits of the BMC Award are not only short-term.
In obtaining the 2023 Award, how much did your results weigh in?
Probably the fact that in the last three years we have marked significant growth in turnover and margins has undoubtedly helped. So has operating in an ever-expanding market such as trust services, which is combined with our historical experience in system integration: a combination that is also reflected in Intesi Group’s organizational model with its two divisions respectively dedicated to qualified trust services – for example, in the area of digital identity and signatures – and to Solutions with a development, testing and infrastructure services offering aimed mainly at large enterprise customers.
But there is one aspect that should not be underestimated.
To be truly a successful innovative company, it is not enough just to be well-structured and to grow regularly, nor is it enough to “just” invest in technology and in the ongoing, albeit priority, development of new products and services of excellence.
In our vision, it is necessary for an organization to be truly open to the world and future-oriented.
What do you mean by this?
As Intesi Group, we are not nor do we want to be an island, a stand-alone entity.
Instead, we are an active part of an ecosystem that lives and grows thanks to ideas and synergies that develop between us and suppliers, technological and business partners, startups in which we have invested, research centers and, first and foremost, customers.
And, not infrequently, even with competitors: when the overriding goal is to make a system and create common value for the company, the industry and our country in general, the ecosystem approach is the only one that succeeds in amplifying the benefits for all the actors involved with an overall final return greater than that achievable by each entity on its own.
This is why we actively participate in various international tables and networks, which are moreover essential in an increasingly global market: this is the case, among many others, of the Open Wallet Foundation Europe, the Linux Foundation’s Trust Over IP, and the Cloud Signature Consortium in which we have even been appointed to the presidency.
What else does it mean for a company not to be an island?
It means being open to the new demands of a rapidly changing world. This is Intesi Group’s natural attitude, starting with issues of environmental, social and governance sustainability. ESG principles inspire business choices at the financial level, in people management, in the use of energy and material resources, and so on. And they also guide us in identifying and planning initiatives that benefit communities, territories and the Planet, the implementation of which is made possible by the commonality of values, vision and commitment that characterizes us at every level in the company and that we like to call IG Style. We have thus supported, all together, projects with high social value: for example, the initiatives of LILT (Italian League for the Fight against Tumors) for the health care of the underprivileged, children and refugees or of the non-profit organization abc la sapienza in tavola, which brings inmates closer to the culture of work by hiring them in the restaurant “hosted” by the Bollate prison. But we have also made a concrete commitment to the environment: thus were born both the Intesi Group Forest, in collaboration with Treedom for the planting of hundreds of trees in disadvantaged areas around the world, and the IG Bee oasis, created together with the agritech start-up 3Bee, for the monitoring of 600 thousand bees and the pollination of 600 million flowers.
Is there anyone you would like to thank for this success?
I am grateful to all the people who work at Intesi Group daily: whether it is strictly business or the many other aspects of corporate life, their adherence to the strategic direction taken is sincere and constant as well as their contribution of ideas, information and experience is increasingly proactive and relevant. The role of our people is central to the company’s prospects for growth, and we try to recognize this by providing a comfortable work environment, a well-rounded welfare program, and open communication at all levels.
To all my colleagues I say thank you: together we will strive to deserve the BMC Award again in 2024!