doca guide to doing business in Italy
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a guide to doing business in Italy
ACCESS I TALY AGui det oDoi ngBusi ness i nI TALY 1 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 4 W HY THIS MARKET IS IMPORTANT ............................................................................................. 4 PURPOSE OF THE REPORT........................................................................................................ 4 HOW IT WAS COMPILED ............................................................................................................ 5 2. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS ............................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 6 BUSINESS CULTURE AND PRACTICE .......................................................................................... 6 BUSINESS MEETINGS IN ITALY................................................................................................... 8 LANGUAGE IN ITALY ................................................................................................................. 9 3. STARTING IN THE ITALIAN MARKET .................................................... 15 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 15 GEOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 15 MARKET RESEARCH ............................................................................................................... 16 BUILDING MARKET PRESENCE................................................................................................. 18 W EB PRESENCE IN ITALY........................................................................................................ 18 CASE STUDY: EXECUTING A SALES PLAN IN THE ITALIAN MARKET .......................................... 19 ANTONIO RUZZELLI, CEO, WATTICS....................................................................................... 19 CASE STUDY: A FORMULA FOR COMPETING EFFECTIVELY IN ITALY ........................................ 21 CHRISTOPHE COLUSSI, SALES ENGINEER, BURNSIDE AUTOCYL............................................... 21 CASE STUDY: REACHING DECISION MAKERS IN THE ITALIAN MARKET ..................................... 23 W ILLIAM EGENTON, MANAGING DIRECTOR, DROMONE ENGINEERING....................................... 23 4. ROUTES TO MARKET ............................................................................. 25 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 25 DIRECT SALES FROM IRELAND ............................................................................................... 25 PARTNERS ............................................................................................................................ 25 CONSULTANTS/COMMERCIAL AGENTS .................................................................................... 25 CASE STUDY: CHOOSING THE RIGHT ROUTE TO MARKET IN ITALY.......................................... 26 PAUL FITZPATRICK, HEAD OF GLOBAL OPERATIONS, C&F GREEN ENERGY .............................. 26 DISTRIBUTION........................................................................................................................ 27 CASE STUDY: W ORKING WITH DISTRIBUTORS IN ITALY.......................................................... 28 GARY NOLAN, MARKETING MANAGER, MDS AMIBA ................................................................ 28 LOCAL OFFICES IN ITALY ........................................................................................................ 29 SELLING TO THE GOVERNMENT IN ITALY ................................................................................. 30 JOINT VENTURES/ACQUISITIONS ............................................................................................. 30 CASE STUDY: ENTERING THE ITALIAN MARKET THROUGH ACQUISITION .................................. 30 FEARGAL BRADY, CO-FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, BLUEFACE.................................................... 30 5. LEGAL ISSUES IN ITALY ........................................................................ 32 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 32 TAX ...................................................................................................................................... 32 LEGAL ISSUES ....................................................................................................................... 34 COMPANY FORMS .................................................................................................................. 34 VAT ..................................................................................................................................... 34 EXCHANGE CONTROLS AND TRANSFER PRICING....................................................................... 34 MERGERS ............................................................................................................................. 35 HIRING STAFF IN ITALY ........................................................................................................... 35 6. GROWTH SECTORS ................................................................................ 37 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 37 LIFE SCIENCES ...................................................................................................................... 38 ENGINEERING ........................................................................................................................ 38 ICT & TELECOMS .................................................................................................................. 39 CLEANTECH .......................................................................................................................... 40 2 OTHER OPPORTUNITIES: ........................................................................................................ 41 FINANCIAL SERVICES ............................................................................................................. 41 ICT FOR TRAVEL ................................................................................................................... 41 ENTERTAINMENT AND DIGITAL MEDIA ...................................................................................... 41 7. HOW ENTERPRISE IRELAND CAN HELP YOU SUCCEED IN ITALY ... 42 PRE-VISIT SUPPORT .............................................................................................................. 42 IN-MARKET SUPPORT ............................................................................................................. 42 PATHFINDERS........................................................................................................................ 42 INTERNATIONAL MENTORS ..................................................................................................... 42 MINISTERIAL EVENTS ............................................................................................................. 43 FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE ......................................................................................................... 43 CONTACTS IN ITALY ............................................................................................................... 43 DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR INFORMATION FOR ITALY............................................................. 43 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... 44 DISCLAIMER ...................................................................................................................... 44 3 1. Introduction “ I would encourage Irish companies to think about the Italian market. If you’ve got a good, marketable product and good customer service, I think it’s a really promising market… Anywhere you can meet an existing demand and provide solid customer service is going to do well. Feargal Brady, Co-founder & Director, Blueface ” Why this market is important With a population of more than 61 million people and 2013 GDP of €1.5 trillion, Italy is among the world’s top ten economies – ranked by the IMF as the fourth-largest in Europe and the eighth-largest globally. A wealthy nation, Italy’s income per capita is more than €21,000 and the country is a member of the G8 and G20 economic forums for industrialised nations. Italy is open to doing business with international companies and importing foreign goods and services, which makes it a strong potential market for Irish exporters. A highly sophisticated market, Italy has suffered during the recent financial crisis and, as a result, its firms in many sectors are looking for ways to compete more effectively, gain market share or improve operations. Irish companies focusing on innovation and providing niche products are likely to find gaps in the market that may not have been initially apparent. Italy is the second-largest European country for manufacturing – behind Germany and ahead of France and Britain. The ‘Made in Italy’ brand still carries great status, and the country has a longstanding reputation for stylish design, epitomised by its leading fashion brands, and luxury items such as sports cars. Moreover, Italy is known for its excellence in manufacturing quality industrial products. Four of Europe’s top 20 companies measured by revenue are Italian, but overwhelmingly, the country’s business landscape comprises small and medium-sized enterprises. More than 90 per cent of this number are family-owned businesses. In 2015, Italy will be in the spotlight with the hosting of Milan Expo. An estimated 20 million visitors are expected to attend the global fair, which runs from May until October. Italy is geographically close to Ireland, and very accessible by air. English is not as widely spoken as in some other European markets, but this need not be a significant barrier to doing business there – as shown by Italy’s ranking as the fourth largest European export destination for Enterprise Ireland client companies. In 2013, those firms had combined sales to the market of €368 million, and total exports from Ireland to Italy were €2.2 billion. The Italian economy has undergone its own difficulties, and the Renzi Government is promising reform in order to return the country to growth. Even allowing for these external challenges, Irish companies are arguably under-represented in Italy given the size of the market. As the case studies in the following chapters show, there are many opportunities to win business in Italy. Purpose of the report The objective of Access: Italy is to give practical and up-to-date information on the market for Irish companies. Here you will find useful, easy-to-digest advice on the critical aspects of doing business in Italy for companies at all levels of business development. This guide covers: How to get started 4 Italian business culture and how it differs from Ireland’s Integrating the Italian language into your business Market research Routes to market Key legal issues, tax, and recruitment considerations. How it was compiled This report is based on the practical experience and knowledge of highly successful people in the market, and by specialists in areas such as taxation and marketing. It is informed by the lessons learned by the many Irish business people who have succeeded in Italy. The report also includes commentary from a number of these people. Access: Italy is intended to be of use to a wide audience, from companies thinking of exporting to Italy for the first time, to those already selling in the market and wishing to examine strategic options for further growth. Compiled between June and August 2014, this report is up-to-date with the latest available research and findings. 5 CRI TI CALSUCCESSFACTORS 2. Critical Success Factors “ I think that is a cultural thing in Italy, where they have very personal relationships with their vendors. It’s a matter of nature and it becomes a matter of business principles. ” TheO’Sullivan, Managing Director, Seabrook Technology Sean criti cal succ ess Introduction fact or Byin their very nature, international business dealings carry greater levels of risk for both sides, but as the selling party, the onus is firmly on the Irish company to provide Italian prospects with the Indi reassurance they need. In Italy, this is established through regular personal contact and a commitment a to building long-term mutually beneficial relationships. With a Latin culture that places great for importance on family and friends, business in Italy relies strongly on personal connections and introductions. Bear in mind that there are significant cultural differences between the North and South us of Italy; was what follows in this chapter is a general guide of some key aspects of Italian business culture, to ensure you make the best possible start in the market. that we Business culture and practice dev elop The principles of successful selling are fundamentally the same in Ireland and Italy. Critical factors ed a being early to market, competitive product features, price, quality, perceived ability to deliver include andsup personal relationships. However the relative importance of these and the way in which they are expressed differs significantly between the two countries. Doing business in Italy requires more time erb andcom effort than in Ireland because Italians must feel that they know and trust someone before they will do mer business with them. You don’t just get right down to selling at the first meeting. In Italy, decisions are usually taken ‘con le gambe sotto il tavolo’ – with your feet under the table; that is, socialising over cialor dinner. However, getting to that point takes time and you need to expect it, plan for it and not lunch and rush it. tech Italian business culture is more formal than Ireland’s nica l This starts with greetings: In Italy, you would not say ‘ciao Giovanni’ to someone you had relat never met before. Use of this casual greeting and the first name is saved only for when the ions relationship has been established for some time hip Instead, use ‘Buongiorno’ (good day) or ‘salve’, followed by the person’s full title (Signor for a with the man, Signora for a woman) and then their surname cust Note that ‘Dottore’ or ‘Dottoressa’ has a much wider meaning in Italy and refers to someone ome who has a university degree r. We Other important titles to note include ‘ingegnere’ [engineer] or ‘avvocato’ [lawyer] liste Personal recommendations carry a lot of weight in Italy. It’s worth making first contact with a ned customer via a trusted third party such as Enterprise Ireland or by another contact that to target you have in common thei r Italians prefer face-to-face contact instead of phone or email, so it is important to spend as chal much time as your budget allows developing relationships in person leng es 6 and deli vere | Italians like to put forward a “bella figura”, which refers not only to how you are dressed but also your general behaviour and demeanour Negotiations in Italy focus more on the seller as a person rather than the product or service under discussion Always keep any promises or agreements that you make verbally. Failing to follow through on a commitment will set back a business relationship Working hours in Italy vary widely by sector and geography. Many shops take an extended lunch break, closing for up to two and a half hours in the afternoon before resuming until early evening There are 12 standard public holidays in Italy, which are always taken on the day they fall rather than on a Monday as is common in Ireland. If a holiday falls on a Thursday, for example, you may find many Italians take the Friday off as a mini-break before returning to work the following Monday. Check before making any travel plans Although not as strictly adhered to as in the past, August remains the main holiday period and many Italian offices close for at least two weeks or longer. As a rule, it’s not a good idea to arrange meetings for summertime in Italy. NEED TO KNOW Facts and data are essential when making the case for your product or service, but Italians don’t consider them as important as in Northern Europe. Italian people prefer to do business with someone they know and like, so it’s important to show you can be trusted and to develop a sense of mutual respect in the early stages of meeting a prospect in Italy. Italians are understandably proud of their rich history and culture, and of their food; showing you appreciate these aspects of Italian life will be well received, as it shows that you’re not just there to do business. Sales cycles in Italy are slower than in Ireland, due to the risk-averse and bureaucratic nature of business. Issues must be discussed at length The length of time is also due to the hierarchical nature of Italian businesses Italy’s business landscape mostly comprises SMEs, many family-owned; they will take a lot of convincing before using an unfamiliar supplier, especially if it involves breaking an existing relationship that has been built up over many years A proven track record of success and demonstrable customer references are even more important in Italy than in Ireland As part of mitigating risk, Irish companies need to prove their ability to deliver high levels of customer service, given the geographical distance between the countries. 7 NEED TO KNOW Like Ireland, Italy is a highly networked country but a crucial difference is that Italy has a much stronger regional favouritism; that is, a tendency with companies in the Italian market to buy products from the same region when possible. This may be for cultural or historical reasons dating back to when regions were independent states. Even now, it seems that there is still a tendency to believe more in a product that comes from the same region, which is sold through face-to-face meeting and possibly also with a reference from a local company that previously bought the product and is happy with it. In the Veneto region in particular, this tendency may even be stronger than elsewhere in Italy due to the historical industrial districts, which were conglomerate of families and villages working together. Each of those families ran an independent business and specialised in manufacturing a component of a final product, which then used to be assembled and sold by another family responsible for the branding and sales. The Veneto region has always looked to establish its competitiveness on an economic system structured on such clusters of collaborative businesses. Business meetings in Italy Don’t assume that a meeting in Italy will follow a typical Irish format. It might sound obvious, but preparation is vital ahead of meetings in Italy in order to make the best possible impression. Winging it, or arriving without a proper presentation, is a major misstep in a country where professionalism speaks to the ‘bella figura’. Italians expect a degree of showmanship and a certain polished performance, with any supporting materials being of a high standard. Don’t overdo the hard sell, especially at the start. You’re more likely to win over an Italian prospect by showing you understand what their company does, the challenges it faces, and how your product or service can address its needs. Normally the initial meeting will be with a mid-level person in the company who will then report back to his superiors This is likely to lead to another meeting, then the matter will be discussed internally In Italy, meetings are not for arriving at decisions but instead for a free flow of ideas and to let everyone have their say Italians enjoy talking, and they like to debate a subject in detail; consequently, discussions in Italy tend to be longer and more wide-ranging For this reason, the more Italians present at the meeting, the longer the discussion will be Italians don’t consider it rude to interrupt someone while they are speaking; in fact, it’s often seen as a sign they are interested in the subject at hand, and engaged in the discussion Plan your presentation with this in mind; if the most important information is on slide 20, there is a strong chance that you won’t get around to showing it Call the customer in advance to ask who will be present at the meeting from the buyer’s side and what their background and role in the company is Decide accordingly if it would be useful for a technical member of your team to attend the meeting. Their presence can shorten the selling process and enrich the discussions This also means you present a more serious image, you get more detailed feedback about your offer and you understand the customer’s needs better 8 Agreeing a meeting agenda allows both parties to have the same expectations as to the purpose of the meeting and which topics will be covered Bear in mind, Italians may see this agenda as a starting point for further discussion rather than a timeline to be followed to the letter Prepare a simple, clear presentation, timed to last a maximum of 15-20 minutes It’s a good idea to prepare back-up slides with additional information to help answer complex or difficult questions. This particularly helps if the audience are not native English speakers The onus is on you as the seller to drive the meeting, but do so in a way that necessitates interaction from the other side Don’t make the mistake of trying to ‘close’ an agreement at too early a stage As the meeting winds down, you should propose the next steps; suggest dates for a follow-up meeting or other actions – don’t just leave it for the client to get back to you. Language in Italy English is taught in most Italian schools but it is only partly used in business. In a 2012 Eurobarometer survey, 34 per cent of Italians said they speak English well enough to have a conversation but 62 per cent said they spoke no other language other than their own. If you intend to speak English when doing business in Italy, it is worth checking in advance with your contact that the meeting will be in English and to ask what level of English the attendees have. Ask if the client would like a copy of the presentation slides in Italian as well as English. Acknowledging the language issue is important, and your Italian hosts will appreciate if you say something at the outset such as ‘Buongiorno, mi scuso, non parlo italiano’ [Hello, please excuse me, I don’t speak Italian]. Your prospects will appreciate if you have your initial correspondence with them translated into Italian – but use a professional translator, not just software It’s also a good idea to use Italian in product literature and tender documents, if appropriate Sending invoices in Italian will also help to avoid confusion. You may also have access to Italian-speaking resources close to home: there is a very active Italian community in Ireland and many of these people have experience in working for multinationals based here. If you are thinking of working with an Italian person as an interpreter, make sure they understand your specific business so they use the correct language, particularly if they will be translating technical terms. While they may not have formal sales training, they will have the crucial advantage of being familiar with your company and the product or service it provides. Another advantage of having an Italian person as your interpreter is that they can read your host’s intentions more clearly. NEED TO KNOW Levels of spoken English vary widely in Italy, and this makes it important to have an interpreter, or better still, a company representative who speaks Italian fluently. Even if your meetings will be held in English, it’s best to speak in short phrases and to avoid using jargon or idioms. It’s also worth asking regularly that what you have said has been understood. 9 CASE STUDY: Meeting decision makers and making connections Sean O’Sullivan, Managing Director, Seabrook Technology Formed in 1989, Seabrook Technology Group is a manufacturing and business software consultancy, specialising in systems for manufacturing organisations and technology solutions for industries ranging from medical devices and pharmaceuticals to semiconductors, electronics and biotechnology. www.seabrookglobal.com What made Italy attractive as a market and what progress have you made there? “ We chose Germany as our first export market, then Italy followed because we could see mature companies that would be open to our needs. Our management team recognised that Italy was home to large life science manufacturing companies in the pharma and medical device manufacturing areas. Having successfully completed software project implementations for some of these companies in Ireland, we targeted their facilities in Italy. We also identified some target companies attending Med in Ireland in October 2013 and arranged to meet them in Dublin at the conference. Enterprise Ireland introduced us to a senior executive of a medical device manufacturer and we had the opportunity to give an overview presentation to that executive. This was followed by an invitation to visit the full management team at the headquarters in Milan. The first milestone was a major contract at the Pfizer manufacturing site in Aprilia near Rome. Our second success was the completion of a major software implementation agreement with Sorin group in Saluggia near Milan. These have been excellent reference sites. In Italy, we are hopeful of winning new business with smaller, tier two players, and to extending the work we do with our existing customers to include new contracts. In 2014, Italy will represent about 35 per cent of our EMEA business. What were the keys to success in Italy? It wasn’t easy. If you don’t go into a market like Italy with subject matter expertise – be it in retail or manufacturing, or any other sector – you’ll find a lot of failure. We were evaluated on our team and their record in the industry. Customers in the Italian market do detailed checks on your background and your references. We really appreciated the fact that the really senior executives in both companies were anxious to get to know our senior people personally, and to find out what made us tick as individuals and as people who run the business. The impact that the people from Enterprise Ireland in Italy gave us in terms of that guidance was very important. You can get over the technical hurdles easily enough if you’re technically capable, but to know that we had to spend time getting to know the people and making friends with them also helped to set our expectations. I think that is a cultural thing in Italy, where they have very personal relationships with their vendors. It’s a matter of nature and it becomes a matter of business principles. What is your route to market in Italy, and how long is your sales cycle, typically? We have committed three full-time resources supported by regular visits by me as managing director. We work with a direct contact sales model based on detailed research of the key people in each company and we go as high as possible in the decision chain as soon as possible. Our sales process from prospect identification to contract can be six to nine months long. In both cases, these companies were mature in the process that we were trying to engage them in. They had identified the MES [manufacturing execution system] layer being a key enabler for their strategic advancement. Sometimes you go to clients in that position and it’s a short lead time because they know exactly what the benefits would be. It was a case of us joining into an initiative that was underway. The more of those we find, the easier life is, because the shoe leather you wear out is greatly reduced. We will continue to expand our technical and project management resources in Italy. Italian companies prefer to have local access to technical expertise; our sales team is based in Ireland but is extremely mobile. We focus heavily on investing in training and development because subject matter expertise has to be embellished regularly – and by that we mean every quarter. I personally carry out a review with every client every three months, asking them how they rate our resources on site, in terms of subject matter expertise, value for money, and communication skills. My main question at the end always is: what could we do to improve our service and what training should we give for the 10 person to become a more valuable asset to your business? Then we go back to the client when the person has completed a module and we can charge more for their time because they have greater expertise. The impact is a very, very close relationship with the client. With the benefit of experience, is there anything about your business in Italy that you might do differently if you were starting again tomorrow? Start earlier; it is a fertile market. Whenever you have success in a market, you always say ‘why didn’t we do it beforehand?’, but the knowledge that we have now about the Italian market wasn’t in the company three or four years ago. With a company of our size, our pillars have to be in place for every project we do. We invested in the US market with great success. If we had also gone to the Italian market earlier, we would have had it too, but you can fight too may battles on too many fronts, so we’re cautious about expanding. There’s a prudence about what we do. As one of our directors says, ‘festina lente’ (make haste slowly) is a good policy in business. What advice would you give to other Irish companies that are thinking about starting in Italy? Something that I think has changed the face of Irish companies doing business abroad has been the change of emphasis in the Irish foreign affairs units, at ambassador and embassy levels; it has improved the opportunities to win business internationally. The impact of trade missions should not be underestimated either. When you’re a company of our size – which is a small company in global terms – and you have access to the attaché and ambassador and even to ministerial level during the trade missions; that was a significant factor for us in Italy. We were introducing the Irish Ambassador to Italy to our customers, and to the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. In our case, it accelerated the signature of the first contract with Sorin. The Minister happened to be visiting Milan, and Enterprise Ireland contacted me to ask if a visit to Sorin would be of benefit. I said it would! In Italy, this gives you a certain status and social and cultural standing, and also shows that your company has an underlying support from the Irish Government. ” CASE STUDY: Understanding Italian business culture and buying habits Alessandro Felletti, CEO, MoneyMate Italia Founded in 1991, MoneyMate provides information management software and consulting services about investment products to global asset managers. MoneyMate began selling in Italy in 1994, and it set up a separate entity with an office in Milan in 2006. It sells to two types of customers: large financial institutions such as banks and investment funds, as well as independent financial advisory firms across Italy, where it is the market leader. www.moneymate.it | What are the key things an Irish company needs to know about doing business in Italy? “ I think that in Italy, we have opened up to new products and new ideas from foreign countries, because the country’s recent history has shown us that you need to have innovation from outside our borders. Unfortunately in Italy, many people don’t speak English very well. The first difficulty that an Irish company can find in doing business in Italy is the language. You can find people who speak English in Milan, Rome or Florence, but when we want to sell to a local business, I would have to have salespeople who speak Italian. You can probably start with a direct sale but if the market grows, you have to hire locally-based salespeople. If you are working with an Italian national, keep in mind the regional differences. Someone who can sell in Milan might not be successful in Naples. But the person’s nationality is not very important, because Italians usually love to speak with someone who is not Italian – for us, the international aspect is a good point. But the reality is you have to have someone who can speak Italian and, depending on the product that you want to sell in Italy, local presence. Italian people love to have a real ‘feeling’ with the seller. When you have to buy a service that is something that is not physical material, such as software, Italian people like to have contact with the people that sell the product. It’s completely different to Ireland where you can sell via the internet or by phone more easily. 11 Maybe it is the Latin temperament, but Italian people can be sceptical. Sometimes, if someone proposes something new, the question is: where is the ‘fregatura’: where is the catch? That’s why it’s important for us to see the person who represents the product. The key thing is to achieve trust from the customer, and you need to cultivate this. You need to continually speak with them, to maintain the relationship. Italian people need to understand that there is a reliable organisation that is at their disposal on the other side of the relationship. In MoneyMate, we usually go to visit customers at least once or twice a year, asking how they find the product, and how can we improve it. That improves the relationship with the customer, so that it lasts a long time. We have customers that have been with MoneyMate for 20 years. What should Irish companies do to improve their chances of success in Italy? The main problem is in finding the people who have decision-making power. When you sell something to individuals, you have only to show the product, explain how the product is useful and probably you will sell it. When you go to an institution, you first have to find the right person. The decision-making process is usually long because people look to share the risk with a colleague. Speaking about the software market, one difference we have in Italy with respect to the rest of Europe, is that we have to tailor the solution. I have seen with my colleagues in Sweden or the UK that customers think the product is good as it is. In Italy, it’s very rare to find someone who says that: every company wants to have a tailor-made solution. To solve this problem, if you want to sell software or a service, you have to think of it as being as customisable as possible. In our case, usually, we start with a price list for the basic software and then, customers understand that any kind of customisation needs to be paid for. How do you manage the relationship with MoneyMate’s head office in Ireland? The concept that MoneyMate uses is ‘glocal’: a global company with local offices. So head office listens to us because they need to modify the product for each local request. There is good communication. It is important for a company to understand how the system works in each country where they are present. As an Italian branch office, obviously we have business targets to achieve, but we can reach them in the manner that I prefer. We provide royalties to head office but we are completely independent financially, with our own budget. We are operationally independent, so we can decide on local partnerships, bundles, everything. Obviously this is shared with my colleagues in Dublin. I ask them: I want to approach a particular opportunity in this manner, what do you think? We have regular visits from my colleagues in Ireland to go to meetings, and sometimes at an important event, we want to have people from head office. For Italian people, this is very impressive. There is a perception among Italian financial companies that organisations from Ireland or the UK are more efficient. We have the chance to show customers in Italy, to let them see and ‘touch’ the multinational, and this is important. One of the things I like about Enterprise Ireland is that sometimes they organise events with a Government Minister and in those cases, I usually bring a prospective customer to meet them, and it works. Using this approach, we closed an important agreement with the Italian Stock Exchange after a meeting with Minister Bruton. The Stock Exchange then understood that behind MoneyMate Italia is MoneyMate Ireland, which is supported by the Irish State. This is very important when you want to approach an institution like a bank or a Government organisation in Italy. What did you need to start the business in Italy? Under the Italian system, you generally need to have an Italian lawyer (avvocato), because working with Italian rules is very complicated. An avvocato can create a contract with the customer, because if you have a dispute with them, you need to protect yourself. An avvocato can defend your company from customers that do not want to pay, or customers that want money from you for damages. It can depend on the product, but in our case we sell a software licence, so that is regulated by a contract. In my experience, Irish contracts are simpler compared to Italian contracts. A notaio (notary) allows you to open the company or change something in the company statutes. For example, if you decide to move the company from Milan to Turin, or you want to change the list of shareholders, or change the amount of stock, you have to go to a notary. You also need to have an 12 Italian fiscal consultant in case you have to move within various kinds of taxes. This is the most complicated thing that you have in Italy. We are looking at the Italian market as a beachhead into Europe for us, and we have found using Enterprise Ireland is better than cold calling for getting sales leads. We’ve been in contact with 10 different companies. The lead-in time for working with pharmaceutical companies is between 6 and 18 months. We think Italy could be an important market for us. What we do aligns well with what they require in that area. It’s always difficult to forecast but we hope that Italy will become a major part of our export market. And we’re specifically targeting that area rather than the UK or France. We found there is an appetite for outsourcing so we feel there is an obvious opportunity for us. ” CASE STUDY: Standing out from competitors in the Italian market Paola Vercesi, Marketing Manager, Certification Europe Founded in 1999, Certification Europe is an accredited certification body providing ISO management system certification and other management standards to SMEs, multinationals, Government departments and state bodies globally. Its headquarters are in Dublin and it has a local office in Novara, Certification Europe Italia Srl. It has been active in the Italian market since 2006. www.certificationeurope.com / www.ceitalia.com How did your company get started in Italy? “ | Back in 2005, CE founder Michael Brophy and Luciano Fizzotti, a seasoned Italian certification professional, were both interested in the opportunities for information security management systems and related areas at a global level. Michael had also been involved in the development of the newly published ISO 27001 standard and the market showed a huge potential. So everything started from there. Opportunities seemed very high and interesting at that time in Italy also for many standards, which already formed the CE portfolio in Ireland. With that assumption, Michael and Luciano began working together on the Italian market in 2006 by creating CE Italia. The process of creating the new company was quite smooth, because Luciano Fizzotti has been in the certification business in Italy for more than 15 years. He was already very well known in the industry and was already very well aware of what setting up a new certification body would have meant and required. Luciano had worked in other international certification companies in Italy and he had previous entrepreneurial experience, so that was valuable. That all meant we were not starting from zero. It was very well planned because we want to make sure that we have the same top level of quality service in all the markets that we serve and where we are present – and that our business meets all the local legal requirements and customers’ needs. In fact, Michael and Luciano had been planning the new company for between a year and 18 months in advance before forming it. What is it about the Italian market that made it necessary to establish a sister company rather than providing services directly from Ireland? Not only the language, but the way of doing business and the levels of bureaucracy in Italy are totally different. In Italy, there are a lot of different processes that lead to a business agreement, so it’s a lot easier for a prospect to go to someone who speaks Italian and who knows what the legal requirements are. There are many reasons why companies want to be certified; it’s not something that’s typical of the Italian market, but in Italy I would say it’s something that makes the difference. Very often, you see tenders including questions about whether bidding companies are certified to specific standards. And if they are, they can skip a million of questions and evidences to be provided. Also, there is the fact that we are an accredited certification body in Ireland, with INAB, in the UK with UKAS, and in Italy with Accredia. So that makes a difference because accreditation is the guarantee for a client that the certification body provides a robust assessment of their management systems, and the certificate they are getting is not just a piece of paper but a real value to their business. 13 Did it take longer to get established in the market than you expected, and was the process easy or complicated? It didn’t take long, but it’s an ongoing process. What makes Certification Europe different from other competitors is the fact that we try to stay at the forefront of the certification industry and anticipate the markets. We offer ISO 9001 quality management certification because it’s the basic and it will become something that every company will have to have. But we try to offer specific standards and we take part in the development of new standards. We also aim to get accredited as soon as possible to new standards. Our statement in the market is very much about being at the leading edge. This is exactly what happens these days in Italy. The national accreditation body Accredia recently launched the first accreditation scheme overall for certification bodies that offer ISO 20121 Event Sustainability Management Systems. We aim to be the first accredited certification body worldwide to be awarded this important accolade. In Italy, Event Sustainability will be a sought-after standard in connection with Expo Milano 2015 and we want to be the provider of choice for the Expo’s international exhibitors. What business development and marketing activities have been the most effective for you? I would say that networking is the most important go-to-market practice in Italy. That means getting to know companies, and their managers who are responsible for implementing management systems. We also create a referral system with our clients. In Italy, we work very much with utility companies for instance; that is a small world and if a client likes you, it will raise your reputation. I discovered the power of networking when I moved to Ireland, because in Italy it’s something that is so built into your DNA that you don’t even realise that you need acquaintances to get to know other people, to get a job, or to get business. Networking is a fundamental part of the Italian way of doing business. That means not just meeting people and shaking hands; it’s about making personal connections one-to-one, as compared to the social networking that you normally do in Ireland as part of business networks. In Italy, the personal connection is really celebrated: it’s a case of “I know the person, so I will introduce you to them”. You have to know the right person to get ahead in your business. If you don’t have someone who has those connections in Italy, you should recruit someone who does. I worked in Italy with many companies who had specifically consultants or temporary business development managers who worked there just because of their network of contacts. What advice would you give to another Irish company thinking about doing business in Italy? The best chance of success for Irish companies is to offer a specialised product or service, target niche markets and try to partner with someone who knows the market already. Don’t go thinking ‘it’s just another market’. Italy is a lot broader than the Irish market, more bureaucratic, more formal and conventional, and there are a lot of differences between the north and the south of the country, so you would have to know the different cultures. In Italy, only a small percentage of the population speaks good English, and it’s true this is kind of an obstacle. If you target a niche market, a premium market, with people who speak English and have no problem understanding you, maybe that’s an advantage. Otherwise, it’s important to try and look as Italian as possible, because English can be hard for people to understand, and this might make them reluctant to do business with foreigners. One thing I want to mention with regards to the different cultures and language: translate all of your collateral, including your website, into Italian. Don’t think of going there only with collateral in English; that would be a big mistake. ” ” | 14 STARTI NG I NTHEI TALI ANMARKET 3. Starting in the Italian Market “ Whether it’s in Milan or Dublin or Cork, or New York, it really doesn’t matter: you have to get on a plane to visit the market. If you’re not prepared to travel, you won’t get the business. We are travelling all the time to Italy, nonstop, and it’s not just one person: it’s usually cross-functional teams of people. You don’t want them to think that you’re only one person, and it’s very important to forge relationships at all levels. ” William Egenton, Managing Director, Dromone Engineering Introduction | Italy is a highly competitive and sophisticated market, and Italian SMEs, which make up the majority of businesses, can be very loyal to existing suppliers. These factors call for careful advance research to identify opportunities and to position your product competitively. Geography ‘Il bel paese’ stretches from the Alps bordering France, Switzerland and Austria, south into the Mediterranean. Italy’s territory includes several islands of which the two largest are Sardinia to the West and Sicily at the southernmost point. Occupying 301,340 km2, Italy is roughly four times the size of Ireland but is far more densely populated with more than 61 million inhabitants. The North is the most prosperous part of the country; close to three-quarters of the country’s GDP is generated there, and the majority of export-focused Italian SMEs and multinationals have their headquarters there. Most people consider the North of Italy to be concentrated around the eight regions from the borders with France, Switzerland and Austria, stretching down to Emilia-Romagna. Southern Italy, also known as the Mezzogiorno (literally, midday), is generally taken to start at the Abruzzo region downwards into the peninsula and including the island of Sicily. From the perspective of an Irish company selling to other businesses, the positive aspect to this geographic concentration is that it shrinks the addressable market into a more manageable size. With some exceptions, most of the key industries are based in or around Milan and to a lesser extent Rome. Many smaller Italian companies tend to form their own industry clusters [distretti industriali]. Rome is the capital and the seat of Government. It is also the largest city in Italy with a population of 2.75 million people. Milan in the industrial north has a population around half that of Rome, but it is the financial hub. The surrounding province of Lombardy is the country’s industrial heartland, contributing 20 per cent of total GDP. (Milan alone generates 10 per cent.) Other prominent cities include Turin (province of Piedmont) and Genoa (province of Liguria). With flights to northern Italy taking little over two hours, the country is sufficiently close to make it easy to visit regularly first-hand. There are daily direct flights to the two main airports in Milan via Aer Lingus and Ryanair also flies to nearby Bergamo in the north. Both of Rome’s airports are reachable from Dublin, and low-cost carriers also serve smaller, regional airports around Italy. 15 Market research As a sophisticated and mature market, opportunities in Italy are best understood after a lot of research, along with regular visits to the market. As has been discussed elsewhere in this report, you are likely to need Italian language capability sooner rather than later. Fortunately, there has been a big increase in the amount of English-language information available about Italy lately to help with your initial research. Here are some useful sources below. ISTAT The National Statistical Institute has a website available in English and Italian. On its homepage are links to statistics organised by theme, such as population, industry and services, household and society, education and labour market, health and welfare, agriculture and prices. Census data is also available here, and there are other regularly updated reports and publications available via subscription. 16 Invitalia The website of the Italian Government agency for inward investment outlines the services it provides – free of charge – including pre-investment information, and assistance with setting up a business in Italy. Registro Imprese The Italian equivalent of the Companies Registration Office, this English site lets you search for companies, and buy company profiles or obtain their financial statements. It is a paid service, so it’s less for basic research than for doing due diligence on companies you already know or have met. Chamber of Commerce Through the website of the Chamber of Commerce, it is possible to access financial statements and other company information about firms you may want to partner with, or use as distributors. Each Chamber of Commerce in each city has its own website. For example, for Milan the website is www.mi.camcom.it. An alternative English-language version of this site is available at www.chamberofcommerce.it. Agenzia Entrate The Italian Revenue Agency has an English-language site with information and documents about the Italian tax system. Quandl Useful source of statistical information about the Italian economy, which is entirely free of charge because it uses open data. The Trading Economics Italy page is also useful for macro information such as GDP figures. Italian Cabinet This website is available in Italian only, but it includes links to other Government organisations. The Italian Parliament portal is available in English and Italian, as is the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. CNEL is the Italian National Council of the Economy and Labour (Italian only). IlSole24Ore The country’s leading business journal has a website in English. Other sources of news and information about Italy, in English, include Corriere della Sera, and the press agency ANSA. The State news channel, RAI, is available in Italian, as is the prominent newspaper Il Messaggero. www.google.it Using Google’s Italian homepage to research customers or competitors will return different results to the .com or .ie domains. Google’s translate tool can also help overcome the language barrier during early-stage research. However, this should not be a substitute for hiring translation services to localise your own marketing material for Italy, as appropriate. NEED TO KNOW Enterprise Ireland’s Market Research Centre offers client companies access to market intelligence in the form of company, sector, market, and country information to explore opportunities and compete in international markets. Please visit www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/ExportAssistance/Market-Research-Centre/ for more information on the market research facilities available, and for a database of sector-specific information that will indicate whether there is research available for the market you wish to target. 17 Business networks in Italy Personal connections and networks are very important in Italy, although online connections should supplement to face-to-face dealings, rather than replace them. LinkedIn has more than six million Italian members, and some Italian professionals also have profiles on the French business social network Viadeo. Facebook reaches 18 million internet users in Italy, and just over half this number access the site through a mobile device. An estimated 4.5 million Italians use Twitter, including Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Irish diaspora in Italy is not as extensive as elsewhere in Europe, but it may be able to facilitate introductions to business contacts, partners or prospective customers. The Irish Business Network has a membership page on LinkedIn. Trade shows Always a useful source of sales leads and an opportunity to become known in a new market – either by arranging a speaking slot, or simply to meet prospective customers. Regular attendance at the main conferences and events in your sector is recommended. Italy hosts many events and conferences, and some of the more specialised trade fairs are among the world leaders for their respective industries. There is a comprehensive English-language guide to events in Italy at the Trade Fair System portal. There are also many sites for sector-specific conferences, such as engineering (EMO and BI-MU Sfortec) or construction (MADE EXPO, SAIE and CERSAIE). Enterprise Ireland organises group stands at some important Trade Fairs targeting the Italian market, or specific sectors where there is a strong Irish cluster. For more information on events in which Enterprise Ireland is involved, visit www.enterprise-ireland.com/events. Building market presence At first, your company or brand will most likely be almost totally unknown in the Italian market. This potentially means having to spend more effort on awareness raising and on marketing than your competitors, especially domestic ones. Design is also highly valued in Italy, so you should pay close attention to the quality of any material that you intend to give your prospects. The most effective way to use your marketing budget is to test the market for a specified time using some combination of the following options. Keep in mind that it is worthwhile to have part or all of your website translated for the Italian market. It’s also more cost-effective than producing hard-copy content; you may not need to have your technical marketing material translated at the start. Web presence in Italy Having a strong web presence in your new target market is critical to export success, irrespective of whether you operate in the B2B or B2C space. Research has shown that companies looking for a new B2B supplier will have made about 60 per cent of their decision before making contact with or inviting proposals from potential vendors. Most of this initial fact-finding and due diligence is based on what they find online, which is why it is vital to have a competitive, compelling and highly visible web presence in your target market. Competitive Who are your main online competitors in Italy? How do they articulate their USP on their website? What is their approach to Internet marketing? What content and features does your website in Italy have to provide so that it can successfully compete with its competitors online? What Internet marketing strategies do you need to adopt to stand out amongst the noise created by your online competitors in Italy? 18 Compelling Trust and credibility: What content and features does your Italian website need to provide to build trust and credibility in your company and offering, given your brand is likely to be unknown or less well known in Italy? Culture: How can you adapt your Italian site to the country’s specific cultural requirements? Language: What changes are required to written and spoken text on your website to adapt the language of the Italian website to your target audience? Standards and conventions: What adaptations do you have to make to the website content and design with respect to Italian standards and conventions? Highly visible How do you optimise your Italian website for the leading search engines in Italy: e.g. domain strategy, keywords, links? The Italian top-level domain is .it but it’s not essential for international companies to use this address; Italian companies are comfortable with .com; however using .ie for this market is not advisable as it could be perceived as too parochial What other Internet marketing approach do you need to implement to make sure potential customers in Italy become aware of and visit your website, e.g. search engine marketing, social media, online directories, price comparison engines etc.? For more information on how to create a successful web presence in Italy, a longer version of this section is available on the Enterprise Ireland website. Hard copy Corporate marketing material is a useful sales tool at events such as trade fairs which are likely to play some role in your initial market building. Consider translating any brochures into Italian, depending on the level of English that is spoken in your sector. Ideally, it should include: an overview of the product or service you provide, contact details, and if possible, some endorsement by a significant customer, as such references are very important in Italy. CASE STUDY: Executing a sales plan in the Italian market Antonio Ruzzelli, CEO, Wattics Founded in Ireland, Wattics is an award-winning emerging company that has developed and patented technology to revolutionise the way organisations manage their energy consumption better. Sentinel analytics learn the unique time pattern of consumption for business departments, production lines, appliances etc. to then identify energy wastage and notify users with specific energy-saving actions to implement – delivering return on investment and saving businesses money. www.wattics.com Who are your target customers in Italy and how do you reach them? “ Wattics started to engage in the Italian market about two years ago when the company was at preinvestment stage. Although we had limited resources, we still wanted to address the Italian market from the beginning. That was because we felt there was a need for our solution there and as two of the founders are Italian, we could leverage on our connections and, of course, the language. We engaged with Enterprise Ireland and discussed this and they also thought it was an interesting market. The cost of energy in Italy is through the roof; hence Italian companies are looking for solutions to reduce their overheads and to become more energy-efficient to increase competitiveness. The fact that some of us have the Italian language as our mother tongue was certainly a help to lower the 19 barriers to entry and get the first clients on-board. Italians still do business through face-to-face meetings and I had to travel to Italy and meet the owners of the businesses to close the deals – and I still do it. Once the first site referrals were in place, we needed to find a suitable partner that was willing to include the Wattics solution in its offering. We found VEM Sistemi SPA, a company that operates mainly in the Veneto, Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna regions. Those regions, together with Piemonte, are the most industrialised and wealthiest regions in Italy. Considering that Wattics sells mainly to processing and manufacturing plants, the northern part of the country was a natural choice for us. When we approached the Italian market, firstly we closed with a couple of projects without reference but through a local sales person that I involved, who had a network of contacts with those companies. When pitching the product, obviously the fact that I could speak Italian was a major advantage. Many companies in Italy would not have high levels of English so having a local contact is quite important. In addition, in spite of the fact that we sell software as a service, in order to close those contracts, the prospects requested that we brought a local partner who they could refer to if they had an issue. How do you differentiate yourself in a market as large and competitive as Italy’s, and how do you articulate the value proposition? The energy management market in Italy is large and so is the competition. Product differentiation is crucial: if you can articulate clearly and in a short conversation what is the difference you’re bringing to the market, they are keen to talk. If they see other local companies providing similar products, they tend to prefer local products compared to companies from abroad. We articulate our value proposition based on savings, return on investment and identification of inefficiencies demonstrated through previous installations. The old days when a bill was received and paid regardless of the amount are gone. Nowadays, energy costs impact heavily on the bottom line and if a company does not make an effort to measure them, then there will be no improvement. We believe that as Italian companies are struggling in terms of growth and are tight on cash, this will play in our favour. Those companies are looking for effective cost-cutting measures and a quick return on investment. A new product in this market has to provide that, or otherwise demonstrate that it can help them increase the sales of their products. What is your route to market in Italy? Initially, the couple of customer references were very important in order to approach a partner in Italy, so we could show the technology functioning and those sites could be used by the partner’s referrals in their sales pitches when approaching new customers. As previously said, we sell hardware and software and we specify metering hardware, which gets installed at the electrical distribution board. Therefore, having a local partner for installation and project management was essential. Initially, we established contact with VEM Sistemi using our network of contacts. VEM was in our sweet spot as they already serve a portfolio of loyal clients with whom they have been working for many years and to whom they could upsell. VEM is a 200-person company, and is an IT provider for many large companies in Italy which are also quite power-intense, so some of these customers were looking for a solution to monitor their energy consumption. One thing that made the difference for us to establish a solid relationship with VEM Sistemi Spa is that Enterprise Ireland’s Milan office invited one of the general managers of the company to Ireland last year to the ‘meet the client’ event. That definitely increased Wattics’ reputation and allowed us to develop the relationship. After trialling the solution, we signed a non-exclusive partnership agreement with quotation and sales targets and then shared all the marketing materials and started a training programme for their salespeople. Currently, we are approaching similar companies to partner using the same method. 20 What advice would you have about succeeding in Italy and maintaining the relationship with a partner? Companies approaching the Italian market via partners need to actively maintain a close relationship with the partner through regular meetings and targets. I would strongly advise recruiting an Italian person here in Ireland, who would be responsible for key account management/customer care with your partner in Italy. PowerPoint presentations and marketing material are better if in Italian. An Italian-speaking person in your company would also give some comfort to the partner and avoid things that may get lost in translation. Generally, Italian companies like the Anglo-Saxon way of working, they appreciate the pragmatism and Irish companies are perceived as organised companies. However, if you have somebody who can also speak the language and who can build the value proposition and carry out some marketing with the customer, your progress will be much faster. In fact, it would have been impossible for us to build a partnership in Italy if I wasn’t dealing directly with the Italian partner myself. And as I have another Italian speaker in the team, I’m now in the process of delegating this responsibility. In what ways does Italian business culture differ from Ireland’s? Italian people are very sceptical about taking your word for granted. That’s why if you have a local reference they can call, or if that local reference was saying it’s good, they would believe that much more than any spreadsheet that shows you have done well in a company that they don’t know. They base their choice on opinions from a local business that they know and respect. It’s a fragmented market, one that doesn’t speak great English. Unless there is no Italian company providing that service, they prefer the local alternative unless you articulate very well how you are different. Italian companies have the tendency to delay payment as much as possible. We would advise not to fall in that trap and request money upfront or to have the ability to cut the service if a payment is not received within a given date. In B2B selling, trade shows and events are hugely important for raising awareness. Cold calling does not work at all. You would not get through to a manager. They receive loads of phone calls. Even if you say you want to speak to that person, their PA will ask ‘does he know you?’ and if not, they will cut you off and tell you to send an email to a general address. In Ireland, we got a few leads through cold calling, but in Italy? Forget about it. ” CASE STUDY: A formula for competing effectively in Italy | Christophe Colussi, Sales Engineer, Burnside Autocyl Founded in 1974, Burnside Autocyl is a leading manufacturer of hydraulic cylinders for all types of mobile applications. Part of the Burnside group of companies with a manufacturing base in Tullow, Co Carlow, it is one of Europe’s leading producers of hydraulic cylinders for OEMs worldwide. The company has been selling to the Italian market for more than 20 years. www.burnside.ie When did Burnside first consider selling in Italy and how did you identify where the opportunities would be? “ In our sector, the countries which are really dynamic industrially speaking are Germany, the UK and Ireland, France and Italy. The Italian market, especially in the north of Italy, is really historically strong for manufacturing and machining – you have the car industry and tractor building, along with machine equipment. There are plenty of sharp, cutting-edge companies with very good technology. In our case, the line is really between Torino and Bologna. Our first business in Italy was probably 20 years ago and that was directly from Ireland, from direct contact between the company and the different plants in Italy – in English, of course. Fortunately, the procurement managers and technical directors spoke English. Our products are tailor-made to the customer. This is something Burnside typically does. Every OEM has its own product, his own specificity and his own characteristic depending on the application. We 21 supply double acting and single acting cylinders, which could be used in a tractor or a refuse compactor, a forklift or aerial platform. Those are the segments we are covering in Italy at the moment. Every single euro spent on Burnside Cylinders in Italy needs more logistics and production people in Ireland. Thanks to this extra revenue, there will be some new employment in Ireland. What characteristics have you noticed about the Italian market? The way Italians like to do business is to have one contact, ideally able to speak in Italian, able to speak about engineering, quality, technical issues and logistics. Without doubt, you have to have local presence but that doesn’t mean being geographically based in Italy. I am based in France and I can go there from France very easily. Around 75 per cent of my focus is on the French and Benelux markets; Italy takes around 25 per cent of my time. When I started, I visited the market once every quarter; now I would say I spend one week there every two months. The Italian market has two aspects: there are small-sized business, employing around 50-70 people, that are not so automated but have a lot of skill and good ideas and good design, but quite small and not focused on exporting. This part of the market is flat. The second type of customer has international customers and has joint ventures with companies in other markets like the US or Japan. They are very dynamic and this type of business has more opportunity and is still getting investment. In our sector, it’s very hard to reach the first group because most of their suppliers are Italian or are based in Italy, and most of the staff don’t speak English. By contrast, where there are companies that are part of an international group, it makes it easier for Irish companies like Burnside. That’s an opportunity for outside players, because they don’t want to be exposed to too much risk by having a supplier that has 90 per cent of its sales only in the Italian market. Our business in Italy has grown a lot. In the next stage of our plan, we will have an Italian-language version of our website. Success factors Customers in Italy consider the financial stability of your company in terms of your range of customers. They carry out a risk assessment. To get into the market, you need to attract customers on cost, and show them you are as competitive as an Italian player sourcing products from Italy. How do we compensate for that? At the beginning, at the first RFQ, we have to be really attractive. If I am a new player in Italy, I will have to be really sharp on the margin and select the appropriate customer and market. After you manage to get in with a customer, the key is to get the right product to them. In Burnside, we never try to do business in an area which is not our preferred business: we try to identify applications for our products which are not lowest cost or easy to do. The production in Tullow itself is designed and dedicated to certain special and customised cylinders to make sure we can make them right and in an optimised way. Through that, we are able to start to compete. We can also be very flexible, delivering really high-quality cylinders, and this helps us to compete against smaller suppliers in Italy. Italian companies like to know that we are already working with an Italian leader. That’s why in the different sectors we chase the biggest names because we know they will help us to grow our business. How important is it to have a direct employee representing the company in the market? You have to get the right person – it’s almost like an ambassador for the Irish company. If you don’t know the way to approach an Italian buyer, you won’t succeed with an Irish or German or French mentality. Italians want to negotiate and they like it. If they don’t get a reduction, they see themselves as having failed. They don’t do things by email or phone; you have to meet them and spend some time with them. My grandfathers are both Italian, and my surname is recognised as such. At the first meeting with a new customer, I introduce myself as half French, half Italian. And you have to know a little bit of the culture. I get this from being in Italy regularly. Of course, I’m interested in the economy and in business, but I’m also interested in everything outside the job and that’s something they appreciate in Italy. Showing the person behind the salesman is important in France and it’s crucial in Italy; they are Latin people. They can be passionate people; that’s not just a cliché. If you add to the right product at a right price the possibility of some ‘social’ aspect to the business between two key interlocutors, then you can expect some growth, no doubt. ” | 22 CASE STUDY: Reaching decision makers in the Italian market William Egenton, Managing Director, Dromone Engineering Established in 1978, Dromone develops hitch and coupler technology for the agricultural tractor and construction excavator industries. With 100 employees, it is a European market leader and now exports to 36 countries worldwide. It identified tractor manufacturers in Italy, and its distribution network, before selling in the market. www.dromone.com How long did it take you to build the business in Italy? “ We identified a company several years ago that distributes products in Western Europe, so we worked on their network to make sure there was brand visibility at the factory level, we identified the key people, we developed working relationships with them over time and eventually, we got the opportunity to get test product to the customer and get it validated. That process took three to five years. That timeframe is very typical of our industry, irrespective of geography. It can be that difficult in Korea, Italy, France or America. You need to be patient in a market like this. Our product has a long sales cycle. You’re not going to sell it anywhere over a cup of coffee. You have to be very confident in what you’ve got. Our industry is small and it gets around if you’re not able to deliver. There was no specific certification needed for Italy per se, but there are international regulations that are mandatory and the Italian companies are very focused on these. Our target customer also had their own audit process to go through, and we had to go through that to be accredited. We visited them, we did meetings, and then they did a two-day audit on our company in Ireland. They told us we had scored one of the highest marks they had ever come across. That gave a good comfort factor to move to the next phase of the project. Tell us about your experience in the market so far? In our industry, English is a very common language, especially at the level of product manager. There were some challenges at operational level but once we built trust and they got over any inhibitions of working with an international supplier, the technical details took over. Once both of our teams felt comfortable with each other, we made great progress. Whether it’s in Milan or Dublin or Cork, or New York, it really doesn’t matter: you have to get on a plane to visit the market. If you’re not prepared to travel, you won’t get the business. We are travelling all the time to Italy, non-stop, and it’s not just one person: it’s usually cross-functional teams of people. You don’t want them to think that you’re only one person, and it’s very important to forge relationships at all levels. We’re in the middle of a fit-out with an Italian company, our technicians are working on the line with their guys – the relationship is built up and has moved on, so it’s very positive. As a business, we had to move from having 2 per cent of our staff customer facing to 25 per cent. If you can bring a team with you, you also develop a relationship with a team on the customer’s side. If it’s one person on the other side and they leave the company, it can set you back, so whoever is above him or to the left or right could be your next port of call. Another point I would make is that you know you’re getting somewhere when you get them on a plane. When they arrange for a pre-audit, it’s a sign they’re serious about working with you. We have to ship a physical product to Italy. That’s a cost that we have to factor in. Even if the customer is paying for it and we manage to get that negotiated, it’s being compared against a competitor so either way, you have to factor it in either explicitly or in your product. All of our contracts are in English, and we’ve found Italian companies are happy to deal on that basis. You need to be absolutely crystal clear about all elements of terms of the business in Italy, to make sure it’s all covered to avoid any problems. Our objective now is to grow our business steadily in Italy. We’re going to keep after customers we don’t have yet, and continue to build on our work with our existing customers. 23 What were the keys to being successful? The brand development at their distribution network was very important. Our biggest competitors were an Italian incumbent and we had to keep a German competitor at bay. To win the business, we had to be innovative, for sure, but we also have to be top-class on quality, cost and delivery – three key measurements into a factory. We tried to build up trust over the duration of the meetings. In our case, it’s very important that we had very specific industry knowledge and we were able to leverage that. We’re 36 years in business and we’ve built up a strong reputation as a supplier of pick-up hitches for tractors. Our strategy is that we are only focused on hitches and we want to be the best at that product. Some competitors have a bigger variety of product to sell, but we just do that, it’s what we train to do. In our sector, and the type of company we are, my view is that we should be specialised. If you have a technical product that has to meet certain external standards, and you can be innovative doing it, my view is the more focused you are, the better your business is going to be. We worked exclusively through Enterprise Ireland in building leads. They gave us very good insights and they were very willing to make the initial calls. But they can only do so much; we have to go and do it, visit the market and get stuck in. Getting to speak to the right people can often be difficult in Italy. How did you find this? I think that the company structures in Italy can be quite complex. There are some customer organisations we haven’t penetrated yet and I don’t know if they’re complex by design or culturally complex – they would appear to be more complex than is necessary. Identifying decision makers is key. It can vary from company to company, or even within divisions within the same company. You’ve got to factor in the time this takes, you’ve got to be persistent and you’ve got to keep asking questions. I find you can speak quite candidly with Italian people. My experience is that the Italian companies are very technical and have a great appreciation for technical data and commercial data. If your product doesn’t meet the right specification, you can have all the coffee in the world, but the customer won’t buy it. Your product has to be the best and there has to be a willingness to improve. ” | 24 ROUTESTO MARKET 4. Routes to Market “ The reality is you have to have someone who can speak Italian and, depending on the product that you want to sell in Italy, local presence. Italian people love to have a real ‘feeling’ with the seller. When you have to buy a service that is something that is not physical material, such as software, Italian people like to have contact with the people that sell the product. It’s completely different to Ireland where you can sell via internet or by phone more easily. Alessandro Felletti, CEO, MoneyMate Italia Introduction ” | Choosing the right route to market in Italy is very important; local agents and distributors play a crucial role thanks to their deep understanding of informal business practices and networks of relationships. Despite the relative proximity of the market, the nature of Italy’s business culture is such that regular visits are an absolute necessity, local representation is essential and it’s becoming increasingly clear that some form of more permanent presence is strongly advised if you are serious about selling there. Direct sales from Ireland Unlike in other markets where it’s possible to sell largely on the strength of the product, serving the Italian market remotely through email and web conferences doesn’t work. Fulfilment from Ireland to Italy is not an issue, but what is clear is that this needs to be supported by regular contact between the Irish head office and the customers or partners in Italy. This requires a commitment of time and financial investment to support it. Partners Although it is not mandatory, some form of local partner is strongly advised in Italy. In certain sectors such as healthcare, the complexity of the Italian system makes partnering more of a necessity, in order to be able to navigate tendering processes. Your route into a new market is usually smoother when you have a local partner and this usually leads to higher levels of sales – even if you may need to sacrifice margin to do so. Any commercial terms with an Italian partner should be agreed in advance and stated clearly in any contract. Consultants/Commercial Agents Working with a self-employed consultant who represents your company as an outsourced salesperson is an attractive option in Italy for several reasons: the total cost to an employer for a full-time member of staff in Italy can be almost double the actual salary. What’s more, you gain the advantage of having someone who speaks the language, who knows the business environment and who has a good network of contacts. Enterprise Ireland’s Milan office can provide lists of possible agents and can contact potential representatives in the market on your behalf. It can also broker contacts with business accelerators – experienced consultants with contacts and expertise in a particular sector who now provide their services to companies looking to sell into Italy. 25 CASE STUDY: Choosing the right route to market in Italy Paul Fitzpatrick, Head of Global Operations, C&F Green Energy C&F Green Energy identified Italy as a target market in 2012 after the Government announced feed-in tariffs which are incentives for wind energy companies. The following year, the Galway-based company secured a deal worth more than €15 million to sell 60Kw wind turbines to Graziella Green Power, one of Italy’s leading green energy suppliers, which will power thousands of households. www.cfgreenenergy.com What was your original route to market in Italy, and why did you change approach? “ We originally decided to use agents because that’s what we did in the UK. After three months, my view was we needed boots on the ground and it had to be an Italian national. The other deciding factor for us is that we work on short-term market space, to gain as much share as we can before the feed-in tariffs are dropped. Agents are more suited to long-term and low volume sales. We have agents in other markets which are managed from Ireland, but we took a different approach in Italy. The key factor for me, making the decision, was that I don’t know the market. If I put myself in the shoes of a person landing in Italy, you end up taking twice as long to do things because you don’t know the market and you’re hearing different versions of the situation. We make decisions pretty quickly. The language was one consideration, the culture is another, and the fact that we didn’t know the key players. We didn’t want to take six months to know the key players; there was a market space there and we needed to grab it fast. I think the original agent thought they could just copy a model that worked in another market, but the size of our turbines differs in each market. In the UK market, it was a smaller turbine which was more easily available for the average farmer. In Italy, it’s a bigger turbine so you’re not dealing with farmers, you’re dealing with investors. You have to look at whether the business case fits, because each market is totally different. What progress have you made so far? We have done a lot in a short space of time. The decision to enter the market was made around June 2012. We started that September and we hired our Italian manager in January 2013, so we made this progress in the space of 18 months. We announced the contract with Graziella because we wanted to make a statement that we had signed with the biggest green energy provider in the Italian market. We have other deals worth several million in the pipeline. In fairness, we have a great Italian manager: he’s young, enthusiastic and proactive. He sees the opportunity. He actually found us. He’s managed on a daily basis; we always know who he’s talking to and when. He would work on the contracts and customers and networking. I travel to Italy for one week every month because these investors, no matter how comfortable they are with the Italian manager, want to know they’re dealing with someone from head office. Some of our customers speak English but if you want to quicken up some of the meetings, our Italian sales manager Matteo will speak in Italian. We’ve done very well because the customer base that we have built up is now very informal. Getting the first contact was the most important, and this is where likes of Enterprise Ireland comes in. Using the Irish Ambassador’s residence for lunch gives a good endorsement to the customer, and if they see you are closely linked to a Government body, it gives a comfort factor. We’ve found it works, and I think it’s something more Irish companies should use. We also invite all customers to our factory, and they always visit. That’s normally where we do the handshake and do the deal. Is there anything you would do differently in Italy, with the benefit of hindsight? One of the things we should have done was put our own turbine in the ground, such as in Sardinia, at our own cost. It would have expedited those sales contracts because we could point to a reference site in Italy. In theory, it shouldn’t matter if it’s not in Italy – wind is wind – but a key part of getting the 26 first one over the line was convincing the customer. That’s where the cultural side of doing business in Italy comes in. What have you noticed about business in Italy, and how it differs from Ireland? A general observation is: we don’t do the hard sell. In Italy, they either want the product or they don’t. If it works as a business case, they’ll entertain what you have to say. The social aspects probably come into play after the third or fourth meeting. Italian companies are very approachable, and Italian people are very pleasant to deal with. I go over there now, and meetings are a lot more casual. It’s a good two-way street. You have to go to them first but they will reciprocate and they will go to visit you. When it comes to decision making, it’s definitely more emotional than Germany, where you need a lot of facts. Fundamentally, in Italy they will do business with you if they like you. Our customers in Italy have no problem working with Matteo, and we were very lucky with him. It’s in the personality. A guy might have a great CV but if that person doesn’t gel with the mix of your organisation, that’s difficult because at the end of the day they have to understand head office as well as their own market: that’s an important issue to consider. In terms of managing them, you also have to understand that there is a second language issue for that person. Have there been any challenges in doing business in the market? On the legal side, contracts can be frustrating. It helps to have a good legal team in Ireland and in Italy. All of our contracts are drafted in Ireland but we always get them reviewed by an Italian lawyer because you want checks and balances. It’s not expensive: the contracts are normally copy-and-paste but your upfront costs are going to be a bit more. Once you get it up and running, it doesn’t change and you only need to pay a small retainer. If you have built up that relationship with the law firm, it can help pretty quickly. We found them through our own in-house legal counsel. Our accountants in Ireland have global offices and we use their Italian office, although you could save significantly on the fees by using a locally-based company. I would also recommend doing some homework on the personal contribution taxes that you need to pay as an employer of a person in Italy, and to watch for any hidden costs. ” Distribution | With local suppliers often favoured in Italy, distributors can be a useful route to reach dealers through a network which has already been developed. Seek advice on sourcing an appropriate distributor for your product, either from other Irish companies that have previously sold in the market, or contact Enterprise Ireland’s Milan office. If you intend to use a distributor as your outsourced sales force in the market, it’s worth developing a strategy to ensure that a good working relationship is maintained over a long period of time. In Italy, regular personal contact is an essential part of how business is done. With distributors, that’s especially critical, as they will effectively be representing your brand in the market. In the past, some Irish companies have focused on getting an agreement in place but that’s only the start of an ongoing process. It is also worth having contracts reviewed by a lawyer in advance, and ensuring that the terms of any agreement are clearly understood by both sides. 27 CASE STUDY: Working with distributors in Italy Gary Nolan, Marketing Manager, MDS Amiba MDS Amiba offers cloud-based Voice over IP solutions for business and has more than half a million MDS voice communication systems installed throughout Europe. It has been supplying its technology to the Italian market for almost two decades, working exclusively through a distribution channel. www.mdsamiba.com When did MDS Amiba first consider selling in Italy and why? Was it a response to a business opportunity or part of a planned strategy? “ We’ve had a distributor in Italy since the Nineties, for what would have been analogue telephone systems. Over the intervening period, we’ve strengthened the relationship and as new technology comes along, and we have introduced that as it becomes available. We would rely on the distributor for the local market knowledge that they have and their contact network of installers and dealers. We tend to select a partner who has good local contacts. We supply and customise the technology for them, but the margin that they would take reflects their costs as well, which would include all of the local costs. For example, we don’t get involved in direct marketing to Italian customers. What we offer can be attractive to a distributor. In the sort of business we’re in, there are a number of very large players that everyone would be aware of, and a distributor can essentially resell services from those providers, but they are up against a lot of people selling the same thing. Rather than being cheapest, we can customise our product through localisation and by feature set, which allows a distributor to distinguish itself in the market other than on price. The ability to localise and customise is key. Nobody wants to be competing on price alone and selling commodity products: there’s no sustainable business case in that. The ability to provide some level of customisation and give the distributor a unique offering in the market, which they will rebrand under their own name, is a key aspect of the business. How actively do you manage the relationship? I think you have to look at the potential channel and satisfy yourself that it’s a good fit, both in terms of their technical competence, their presence in the market, and their size so there isn’t a mismatch in terms of size. And after that, it’s about showing up regularly and promoting your product to them, and responding to requests that come back. In our market, you don’t walk in unannounced and knock on the door. Some of the introductions would have been through Enterprise Ireland. We would have given them a profile and told them this was the sort of distributor we’re interested in, and that’s worked well for us once or twice. You do some profiling first, so you know this is the kind of channel you would be interested in. In our situation, we have two key distributors there at the moment and typically we would go and see them four or five times a year to maintain the relationship. There is a natural churn where people move on or retire, where you do need to maintain that personal contact. We have distributors each working on different technology segments. One is focused on Voice over IP, and the other would be on legacy telephony. A third company is now focusing on cloud technology. We would be very open with all of them on that: we first offer all our products to all of our distributors but at some point, some of them will say they’re not interested in a particular technology, and we find someone else. My own experience is that trust is really important and you need to maintain and build that. If they trust you as a good partner, that’s key to doing business. Who is your typical target customer in Italy? We’re very much focused on SMEs. Companies of up to 50 users would be our typical end customer profile but now we’ve migrated our hardware platform onto the cloud so it’s much more scalable and we have offerings that go up to hundreds of users. That means we’re in a position to address the enterprise section of the market. But our main focus is on the SME. Italy would be in the top four or five markets that we have. We certainly see potential for growth in Italy. Its economy has undergone a massive slowdown and our customers have reported huge market drops – but that’s across the whole Italian economy. We would have seen that drop in the volume of our business. 28 From a cultural and personal perspective, what are the main differences with doing business in Italy compared to Ireland? Like all continental countries, there’s a higher level of formality in business. Irish companies shouldn’t underestimate the amount of time to establish a relationship in Italy. Think of the longest time it would take you and multiply it by two. The wheels turn very slowly, in my experience, but once you get the relationship and the trust established, it won’t run on autopilot but it will run. But it does take a long time with a new channel. With the new distributor we have just brought on board, it was two years from an expression of interest to the first order: that’s a long time to be talking about it. Some of the younger companies such as internet service providers that we are dealing with on the cloud product would move faster than the traditional telephony installer channels, but even still, the wheels grind slowly. In some larger organisations, it can seem like a long time, and I’ve found that is particular to Italy. It seems that everybody internally in the company needs to be brought along with decisions. It might also mean that you have to do two sets of selling to different stakeholders within your target company. I would also say on Italy that they can be somewhat bureaucratic in that they will want to see the certificate and the piece of paper, whether that’s your safety mark or the CE mark. The telecoms industry is quite standardised and CE marking is usually sufficient. We don’t see any vestiges of national certification any more. Overall, how would you sum up the opportunity in the market for other Irish companies? There are four or five major European markets and Italy is one of them so in a sense it’s too big to be ignored. There’s huge potential there. The fact that perhaps the economy has been so slow means that it’s got to pick up some time. We’ve all been hoping for that in the last few years. My feeling is that, from talking to people in the telecoms industry, they’re suffering from underinvestment in parts of the infrastructure, so they’re going to have to address that – and that is going to create opportunities. The level of investment has got to pick up at this point. ” NEED TO KNOW | As has been stated elsewhere, Italy is a market that requires time, and one where trusted personal relationships are the foundation of business. For these reasons, ‘distributor hopping’ is strongly discouraged. Distributors by their nature usually carry multiple product lines and it’s up to the Irish company to ensure its own product remains a priority for the distributor. Instead of cancelling an agreement prematurely – and potentially damaging your reputation in the process – it’s better to manage the relationship with the distributor on a proactive basis. This involves regular contact such as face-to-face meetings or arranging joint marketing initiatives and customer visits with members of your team. Local offices in Italy Of the 300 Irish-owned companies exporting to Italy, close to 50 have some form of presence in the market, ranging from a single-person sales office to manufacturing operations. Increasingly, Irish companies are finding that it is critical to establish a presence in the Italian market, and some of the most successful client companies in recent years such as Prodieco, Ezetop, Bookassist, Portwest and others have established at least a representative office in the market. More details about this are available in the following chapter. 29 Selling to the Government in Italy As in other EU member states, public tenders above a certain threshold are open for bidding by any provider, even international companies. However, in practice, selling into the Italian public system is extremely difficult. Bidding for public sector work in Italy is best suited for companies that are well entrenched in the market; Irish companies working by themselves are unlikely to be successful. The best option is to work with a local partner or to identify a subcontracting opportunity with a multinational partner – although as has been stated elsewhere, building the required relationships for this work is time consuming. Joint ventures/acquisitions Joint ventures and acquisitions can be a successful route to market in Italy, as a fast way of gaining a foothold in the market, with the advantage of bringing on board established contacts, customers and market knowledge – three elements which are especially important in Italy and would be much harder to achieve either remotely from Ireland or setting up a brand-new office in-country. CASE STUDY: Entering the Italian market through acquisition Feargal Brady, Co-Founder and Director, Blueface Blueface is a technology driven, internet-based telecoms company, founded in 2004, targeting business customers and delivering tailored, big business communications services at a small business price. In 2013, it expanded into the Italian market by acquiring the business cloud-telephony provider Kebu. Now branded as Blueface Italia in Italy and with an office in Rome, the company offers cloud telephony services to businesses and Italian high-tech start-ups. www.blueface.com/it “ You opted to enter the Italian market by acquisition. How did that come about and how did you find the process? Seeing as we knew the company in Italy from having met the principal, we decided to acquire them and formally completed that deal a year and a half ago. We had to acquaint ourselves with the legal route in Italy, which is very different to Ireland, where commercial law is more advanced for doing this type of transaction. All of the pitfalls and checks and balances have largely been thought of in the Anglo-Saxon world and contracts are rock solid, whereas in Italy, the legal system is still catching up – even with small things like all of the shareholders having to appear together in the notary’s office or else having to send a proxy and then the proxy form itself having to be notarised. We were very lucky that we had a really good Italian lawyer. The contract is written in Italian legal phraseology. One difference between contracts in Ireland and Italy is, a contract here has the idea of warranties – which is a normal thing in an English M&A contract – where the sellers warrant particular terms and there’s redress if the situation turns out to be different than stated. Lawyers here in Italy like doing business with Anglo-Saxon companies because contracts are clear and well defined and there’s little scope for differentiation about the contract. We found the legal system in Italy doesn’t really afford protection to buyers or sellers, and then there’s the length of time to conduct litigation. We looked at a joint venture, but a problem with that is the controlling interest. The other option would have been a general partnership but you don’t have protection – whatever little there is in Italy. So the lesson is, when you’re doing a transaction, you really have to be sure you want to do it. Overall, we’re happy that we did the deal. There’s been an enormous amount of learning but the business has started to respond. It’s taken somewhat longer than we wanted to implement the platform, but we’re largely happy that things are going well. How did you start to get traction in the market? We started out with the same strategy as in Ireland. The Irish market is substantially smaller, and it’s easier to raise awareness because the Blueface brand is well known and it’s quite easy to get in the press on a regular basis. In Italy, it’s a lot more difficult to do that. We’ve had to refine our strategy and we are still executing that. In Ireland, originally, we were heavily involved in the tech community and we’ve done the same thing here. 30 We’re renting a space in the Luiss Enlabs incubator upstairs from Roma Termini train station and we’re surrounded by around 40 start-ups. I’m on the advisory panel and we provide special offers for start-ups all around Italy. That’s how we’re slowly getting our name out; we’ve found that if people in technology functions of a business know and like us, they start to recommend us to their companies. We deal with international companies and progressive Italian companies. They like dealing with our type of company who have very straightforward contracts – you can sign up online or email us. They are coming to us because we make it a lot easier to sign up and they like the way we do business. We’re seeing that companies in Italy that provide a high level of customer service are succeeding. How have you raised awareness for the business in Italy? We don’t do traditional advertising in Italy because the spend required to make any significant impact is enormous. Instead, we work with key influencers such as bloggers or technology journalists. We’re also involved in social media so the marketing effort has been focused on that. We brought journalists to the Ireland-Italy rugby match in Rome in March 2013. Things like that are really useful – they’re well worth it. We identified an Italian PR company that knew all the relevant technology and business journalists. About six or seven came to the Irish Ambassador’s residence, and we met them for one-toone interviews, then we held a reception and went to the match. We got national exposure for a fraction of what it would have cost in advertising. It’s difficult to quantify in terms of direct sign-ups and revenue, but we got a ‘softer’ measure in terms of the exposure, so it was really worthwhile. It was hard to identify the PR firm at first, but once we did, dealing with them was straightforward. The unit was quite small, but they were really good. We had a direct relationship with the principal and we will work with them again. It’s better to identify a PR company that comes recommended: I’d suggest talking to a few, seeing what ideas they come up with and starting the process that way. Overall, how would you sum up the opportunity in the market for other Irish companies? I would encourage Irish companies to think about the Italian market. If you’ve got a good, marketable product and good customer service, I think it’s a really promising market. We’re very happy that we’ve got a good foundation in place, it’s growing and we’ve signed some good contracts in the last couple of months. Anywhere you can meet an existing demand and provide solid customer service is going to do well. We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing: Rome wasn’t built in a day. ” | 31 LEGALI SSUESI NI TALY 5. Legal issues in Italy “ The way of doing business and the levels of bureaucracy in Italy are totally different. In Italy, there are a lot of different processes that lead to a business agreement, so it’s a lot easier for a prospect to go to someone who speaks Italian and who knows what the legal requirements are. ” Paola Vercesi, Marketing Manager, Certification Europe Introduction | Italy’s tax and legal environment can be complex and there is a high degree of uncertainty in the Italian system. What’s more, the tax authorities tend to impose heavier sanctions for non-compliance than the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland. For these reasons, it is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice at an early stage. If you plan to set up subsidiary or a branch office in Italy, you will need to work through a commercialista or accountant for tax and fiscal matters. This person will usually be able to recommend a labour law consultant, which you will need if you plan to employ people in Italy. For large companies, the main fiscal issues to consider in Italy are transfer pricing, permanent establishment, country of residence of the business, and anti-avoidance rules and abuse of the law. Small companies may be subject to industry studies and coefficients applied to assets in case their income is below certain standards. Commentary on the Italian tax environment for this chapter was kindly provided by Cahill-Caizzone & Associates. Additional material from Invitalia is also reproduced here in edited form. The agency has detailed information here. Another useful source of information is the Italian Department of Finance website, although this is currently only available in Italian. Tax The main issue for Irish companies investing in Italy is to avoid the assessment of a permanent establishment there. An Irish company has to carefully consider whether to operate in Italy with a permanent establishment, such as a branch or a subsidiary. It should be clear from the very beginning where the source of income is and where it is taxed. Italy’s effective tax rate is very high compared with Ireland’s. A company is considered resident in Italy when it is identified for tax purposes by the Agenzia delle Entrate (Revenue Office) and carries out activities within the country. Over the past number of years, Italy has implemented a broad reform of the Italian corporate tax system, with new amendments being introduced annually. There are two main corporate taxes: IRES (corporate tax) applicable on the net income, adjusted for fiscal reasons, subject to tax at a rate of 27.5 per cent IRAP which is a tax base equal to net income plus interest and labour cost, subject to tax at a rate of 3.9 per cent Partial exemption (95 per cent, from 2008) of capital gains arising from the disposal of qualified participations into Italian and foreign corporations (‘Participation Exemption’) Abolishment of the full imputation system on distribution of corporate profits, i.e., the dividend tax credit, and introduction of a 95 per cent exclusion on dividend distributions 32 Introduction of a joint taxation regime for Italian/foreign corporations belonging to the same group to consolidate their tax base if the parent company is resident in Italy Exemption of capital gains reinvested in companies in start up If the business is carried out in Italy through a branch, such activity is taxed in Italy A representative office which doesn’t carry out any commercial activity in Italy will not be liable for any tax there There is no permanent establishment if there is no management and co-ordination in Italy, and if the company does not have employees or a fixed base in Italy There is no Italian income if the business is not carried out in Italy but from another country Any business-related expenses can be deducted, but certain of these expenses are further restricted in calculating the tax In Italy, non-residents pay taxes limited to Italian profits Italian residents pay taxes in Italy on all income on worldwide basis There is free movement of goods from Ireland to Italy, with no special requirements There is a double taxation treaty in effect between Ireland and Italy The main domestic withholding tax on companies is 26 per cent for interest on bank current accounts Then, companies are obliged to withhold on salary payments and on some payments to foreign entities (on dividends, royalties and interests depending on the country and accordingly to the existing directives and provisions) Aside from the tax rates, companies are restricted regarding certain business expenses as deductions so it is possible that including these restrictions the overall tax could approach 50 per cent Also with each change in government in Italy in recent times, there has been an adjustment to rates. Any business-related expenses can be deducted; however, certain of these expenses are further restricted in calculating the final tax rate. NEED TO KNOW Correct tax policies should be followed in order to avoid the possibility of an assessment of a permanent establishment in Italy of an Irish company. Because there could be some uncertainty about certain tax issues, you can request a tax ruling before carrying on an operation. In the case of no answer to the ruling, taxpayer issues are accepted, as silence implies consent. There is no permanent establishment if there is no management and co-ordination in Italy, and if the company does not have employees or a fixed base in the country. There is also no Italian income if the business is not carried out in Italy but from another country. A company is considered resident in Italy when it is identified for tax purposes by the Italian Revenue Office (Agenzia delle Entrate) and carries out activities within the country. 33 Legal issues Your sales strategy for the market will dictate how closely you come into contact with the Italian legal system. If you plan to sell indirectly via a local partner or distributor, you don’t need to have a permanent legal advisor – although it is still advisable to have any contracts or partnership agreements reviewed to ensure they are in order. Keep in mind that Italy’s justice system has been described by Reuters as “cumbersome, expensive and unpredictable”. An OECD study in 2010 rated Italy as the slowest court system out of almost 40 jurisdictions which it reviewed, with the average length of a civil dispute lasting eight years, compared to 368 days in Switzerland. The World Bank’s annual Ease of Doing Business survey for 2014 ranked Italy at 65th out of 189 economies. In the “enforcing contracts” category it ranks 103rd, and 52nd for “protecting investors”. However, as this report was being prepared, the Government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced a series of measures designed to reform the country’s judicial process and speed up the times for cases to be heard in the courts. Company forms There are two main company forms in Italy, both of which are considered tax resident. The most common form – and the one most applicable to an Irish company – is the limited liability company (Società a responsabilità limitata, or Srl), or the public company (Società per azioni or S.p.A). To set up a Srl or a S.p.A in Italy, you must use a notary (since this is a public deed), an accountant and cash payment of the share capital (€10,000 for a Srl and €120,000 for a S.p.A – the latter is expected to be reduced to €50,000 shortly) Srl and S.p.A companies are taxed in the same way Beyond certain parameters for both companies, a board of auditors is required Shareholders agreements (patti parasociali) apply when entering into a merger or joint venture involving a foreign company and an Italian firm. VAT The standard rate of VAT is 22 per cent In some cases, reduced rates of 10 per cent or 4 per cent apply The main business costs depend on the industry. For commercial activities, the main costs are office rent and personnel costs Office rents vary greatly from region to region and depending on the metropolitan area. Personnel costs vary from sector to sector. Exchange controls and transfer pricing Italy does not impose foreign exchange controls, but transfer pricing is a crucial issue because there is a big gap between the Italian and the Irish tax burden for companies The transfer pricing documentation should be prepared in accordance with the standards set forth by the European Joint Transfer Pricing Forum The Master file is composed of one file describing the transfer pricing policy adopted by the parent company and all its subsidiaries 34 On the other hand, the Country file should be prepared by each subsidiary on the transfer pricing policy adopted in that specific market. Mergers The Italian Merger Law of 3 October 2003 authorises companies to carry out tax-neutral reorganisations (mergers, demergers and transformations) if certain conditions are met, including the following: Liability to Italian tax continues after the reorganisation Assets and liabilities are transferred and acquired at their previous value for income tax purposes. Hiring staff in Italy Italian labour law is very complex and it is important to get the right advice at the start if you intend to hire staff in Italy. The rules surrounding employment have been subject to important changes after the Law 28 June 2012 n. 92 came into force on 18 July 2012. Seen as a step forward, the reform is intended as a strong signal to foreign investors, aimed at making the domestic labour market “inclusive and dynamic”. The core points of the new law are the following: Types of contracts aim to decrease the use of temporary employment contract in favour of apprenticeship one. The latter should be seen as the main way to promote young people’s entry into the labour market Outbound flexibility, adjusting the dismissal procedures to the current economic situation Social safety system, making active labour market policies more efficient, coherent and equal. Labour is regulated by Italy’s Constitution, Civil Code, the Workers’ Bill of Rights (Statuto dei Lavoratori), and other relevant laws and decrees. Employment terms and conditions are also periodically fixed by collective labour agreements within the various professional categories. NEED TO KNOW The main social insurance institutions are INPS (National Social Welfare Institutions) and INAIL (National Institution for Insurance against Accidents at Work). Furthermore, there are other national welfare funds depending on the sector of activity. The percentage rates applied depend on the kind of business carried out by the company. For short periods of work it is possible to use temporary contracts signed with employment agencies The other types of existing contracts are fixed-term and permanent contracts In Italy, there are heavy taxes and social contribution burdens on personnel costs. Combined, these can bring the cost of employment up to double the actual salary It is more difficult to lay off employees if necessary than it is in Ireland The main social contributions that an employer and an employee must make are for retirement Employers and employees must also pay contributions for health assistance in the event of sickness 35 Contributions payable to INAIL, the National Institution for insurance against accidents at work, are compulsory and are entirely borne by the employer It is possible to employ a person in Italy, paid directly by the Irish company, but this is subject to a time limit, unless the company sets up a permanent establishment Non-residents pay taxes in Italy limited to Italian profits Italian residents pay taxes in Italy on all income on worldwide basis. NEED TO KNOW With the majority of Italian companies employing 20 people or fewer, identifying opportunities among those SMEs is likely to mean Irish companies that are serious about the market will need dedicated resources on the ground. In Italy, good salespeople cost money – but on a positive note, business-to-business salespeople in Italy tend to have a good grasp of the technical aspects of a product or service and aren’t just skilled in negotiating prices with customers. Keep in mind that the actual costs to an employer for every member of staff in Italy come to almost double the salary amount. You should factor these costs into your budgets if you are serious about the Italian market. 36 GROWTHSECTORS 6. Growth Sectors “ Generally, Italian companies like the Anglo-Saxon way of working, they appreciate the pragmatism and Irish companies are perceived as organised companies. However, if you have somebody who can also speak the language and who can build the value proposition and carry out some marketing with the customer, your progress will be much faster. Antonio Ruzzelli, CEO, Wattics Introduction ” | There is no denying that Italy’s economy was badly affected by the economic crisis and growth has been a problem for much of the past decade. The signs in early 2014 were not promising, as the country technically fell back into recession with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Forecasts from the IMF, the OECD and the Bank of Italy suggest overall growth for the full year 2014 will be just 0.2 percent. Some other indicators were more positive, with official statistics showing a 0.9 per cent rise in industrial output in June 2014. In Italy, this figure often closely correlates to GDP. The Government is looking to make long-awaited reforms to the labour market and to stimulate more economic activity. But to put this into perspective, Italy is still the fourth-largest economy in Europe, highly diversified and industrialised, with a GDP in 2013 of almost €1.5 trillion. The engine for much of this activity comes from the manufacture of high-quality consumer goods produced by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of them family-owned. Foreign investors are returning to Italy, as evidenced by Qatari and US money backing Milan’s Porta Nuova business district; some people hope that the city could become a Mediterranean business hub in the future. Next year, it hosts Expo 2015, the world’s largest non-sporting repeated event, which takes place between May and October 2015. To show the significance of the event, it’s worth remembering that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi referred directly to Expo 2015 in his inaugural speech to the Italian Parliament, describing it as “a huge stimulus to the entire country”. With a theme of sustainability that is likely to prove a big draw, the fair is forecast to attract 20 million visitors, of which an estimated 30 per cent will be foreign. This creates opportunities for companies providing travel-related products and services. Moreover, the staging of such a largescale event is creating a need for ancillary services ranging from ticketing and hospitality to translation and payment services. Around €900 million worth of work relating to the fair has already been awarded through tenders issued in the EU Gazette. Despite its difficulties, Italy is a proven market for many Irish companies with almost 300 currently active there, yet there is still a sense of opportunity overlooked for other firms. Look past any linguistic or cultural barriers, or the possibility of the market already being saturated. Italian businesses are open to working with foreign companies, and Irish firms with a strong niche offering should do well in a market that is now actively seeking innovation in niche areas. Italian buyers understand quality and value for money, so the discussion won’t centre purely on price. Based on the experience of many successful Irish firms, Italian customers appreciate regular feedback and a willingness to improve on the standards that were set in order to win the business in the first place. This approach – along with continuous building of personal relationships – is a worthwhile formula for the Italian market. In the following pages, we outline some of the main potential opportunities in Italy for Irish companies. 37 Life sciences This is a broad sector in Italy, covering pharmaceutical production, facility building or renovation, and medical device manufacture and sales. Italy is the second largest producer of pharmaceutical products in Europe after Germany, and the sixth largest worldwide. The total value of Italy’s pharma market was more than € 25.2 billion in 2012 Close to 10 per cent of this value is for investment, giving Irish companies a potential addressable market of more than €2 billion Around 61 per cent of domestic pharmaceutical production is for export Italy has a well developed manufacturing base in the medical devices market, comprising a small number of large companies (eg, Sorin, Gambro, CID Vascular) and a large number of SMEs Italy’s medical devices cluster is mostly located near Modena in the Mirandola district There are 290 medical companies in the Modena region with total revenue of €400 million. Opportunities for Irish companies The main areas of opportunities are in the drug development sector and in the manufacturing, packaging and regulatory areas, where there is a strong cluster of Irish companies already successfully selling to Italian pharma companies. In terms of the pharmaceutical market, there are opportunities in engineering and project management for plant construction, even in the face of strong competition within Italy. Irish companies are advised to compete on experience of having managed large-scale projects, allied to responsive service and competitive cost. Success in this field could also lead to further opportunities for other Irish providers of pharmaceutical components or machinery such as vessels, equipment or clean room technology. It’s worth noting that this sector calls for continued effort and identifying the right contacts; in many private Italian firms, the owner has the final word on choosing suppliers. Joint ventures are also worth considering in order to better develop the market without having to take on the costs of setting up a direct presence. The pharmaceutical sector is seeing a shift towards outsourcing part of the production process for new medicines such as synthesising the active ingredient in an antibiotic, or part of the finished product, and this is creating opportunities for external suppliers. Even though there are a lot of contract manufacturers in Italy, there are gaps that Irish companies could exploit; however, it’s vital to know whether the target company intends to outsource production, and this involves developing contacts and dedicating resources to the market over long periods of time. Another trend to watch is an industry-wide move towards serialisation, which is having a knock-on effect on production lines, packaging and IT systems in pharma plants, and this is also an area with potential in the coming years. There may also be opportunities to perform clinical trials for products developed in Italy, as Ireland offers shorter lead times than the producers’ domestic market, which could be a point of differentiation. In the medical devices and diagnostics area, Irish suppliers of semi-finished components are already well established in the Italian market, selling to the largest OEM and also to the local SMEs. New opportunities are in the area of finished CE-branded medical devices where there is a potential for Irish companies selling advanced technology products and services. The route to market in this sector is through local partners that are already servicing the Italian public and private healthcare system. Engineering Italy is the second-largest European country for manufacturing – behind Germany – and it has many leaders in this area with a reputation for quality, creativity and innovation. The sector has been hit hard 38 since 2007 and production levels are down significantly. Nevertheless, the market is quite competitive and the presence of major manufacturing operations of the likes of Case New Holland, Landini/Argo, and Same Deutz-Fahr makes Italy an important target for Irish companies. Enterprise Ireland sees opportunities in three main areas for Irish companies looking to address engineering-related business in Italy. Companies selling to the agri-technology sector Companies dealing with finished products rather than components Client companies dealing with the oil and gas sector – represented by Saipem and others. Saipem, a leading global general contractor with annual revenues of close to €11 billion, can be considered a large market in its own right with great potential for selected client companies. Saipem employs 40,000 people globally and operates in more than 70 countries. Opportunities for Irish companies Companies selling components to the manufacturing industry may find Italy potentially more attractive than other European countries, but sometimes the opportunities are hidden because those industries are fragmented and difficult to find. The sales process may also be longer if there is an incumbent supplier to be displaced. In this sector, it’s very important to have a local partner such as an agent or distributor who can advise on how to manage the relationship with customers, and provide language capability and cultural knowledge about how business is done in Italy. In addition to the likes of Saipem, there are also opportunities in sectors such as airport maintenance or materials handling where client companies can provide innovative machinery at a competitive price. Italy is also a market leader in this sector, most notably with FIAT and other important brands. Many of the smaller firms are nevertheless large in their own right and family-owned. Niche products are highly sought after in Italy’s agricultural machinery sector, and Irish companies have proven it’s possible to make a breakthrough even when selling a more expensive product than alternative suppliers. It’s worth noting that there may be an opportunity in Italy for one particular product in your range and not necessarily the entire portfolio. The websites for fairs such as Cosmoprof or the Cremona Cattle show can be a useful source of market research. In terms of routes to market, some Irish companies have successfully sold directly into large Italian clients. Local distributors can be a key route into the market, but it’s essential to make such partnerships work through regular visits and close support such as joint attendance at important trade fairs. ICT & Telecoms Despite the difficult economic conditions of the recent years, and a resulting drop in the value of ICT spending, Italy remains one of Europe’s biggest technology markets. There has been a drop in traditional ICT components, but a growth in new segments such as cloud computing, value-added services such as apps for smartphones and tablets, digital content and digital advertising. Italy’s ICT sector – Europe’s fourth largest – was worth €65.2 billion in 2013 Mobile phone penetration in Italy is among the highest in the world, with 95 million active SIM cards (with multiple-SIM ownership and including USB internet keys) and over 46.5 million users. E-commerce in Italy is growing rapidly and will register a growth of 17 per cent in 2014 to reach a total market value of €13.2 billion Mobile commerce, which currently represents 19 per cent of total e-commerce, rose by 289 per cent in 2013 to be worth €1.2 billion Italy is one of the largest mobile communications markets in Western Europe and also one of the most advanced 39 In Italy, 48 per cent of new phones are smartphones – forecast to reach 81 per cent in 2016. It is one of the leading European countries for smartphone ownership Italy posted a growth rate in internet use of 24 per cent in 2013, the highest in Europe – albeit from a lower base than its European neighbours Fibre-optic broadband is still limited but has seen significant development in recent years, both in operator investment and in regulatory measures Significant investments are also being made for the implementation of 4G/LTE technology. Opportunities for Irish companies Italy has four major mobile operators: in order of market share, they are Telecom Italia (35 per cent), Vodafone Italy (31 per cent), Wind (24 per cent) and 3 Italia with a smaller share, in addition to several virtual network operators. It has been historically very difficult for small Irish vendors to sell to Italian telcos, due to long decision-making processes and frequent organisational changes that made it difficult to reach the relevant contacts and bring projects forward. It is also a very political environment, and consequently hard for foreign vendors with no presence to influence the decision-making process. However, with operators now struggling to make profits, they are interested in solutions that reduce costs or increase revenues. In terms of IT, there are good opportunities for Irish companies in newer, more dynamic segments such as cloud computing, digital content and advertising, e-commerce and mobile commerce, document digitalisation, the Internet of Things, social networks and smart communities. Although the Italian language is less of an issue than in other sectors as English is widely spoken, Irish companies must be prepared to invest time to build the necessary relationships. Cleantech This category covers both building products and architectural and engineering services for energy efficiency, as well as equipment and services in the renewable energy space. The sector is set to grow in importance over the coming years, with the Italian Government having made energy efficiency across all sectors a priority in order to both reduce the country’s dependency on foreign imports of energy and to meet European energy efficiency targets for member countries. With an estimated gross energy production from renewable energy sources (RES) exceeding 75 TWh, Italy is one of the European leaders in RES development and is considered one of the world’s most attractive markets for renewable energy projects Italy’s Government has implemented tax incentive schemes for energy saving projects that can generate interesting opportunities for vendors of products and services in this sector Italy still depends on foreign supplies for about 75 percent of its energy needs – making alternative energy sources a necessity Italy has gone a long way in implementing environmental policies, mainly as a result of EU legislation, but still lags behind other western European nations in energy efficiency, green energy and pollution control One of the main challenges facing Italy over the coming years is the re-use and remediation of brownfield areas – particularly critical in highly urbanised areas Opportunities for Irish companies Italy is still a net importer of electric energy, although percentage of green energy produced in the country, mainly from photovoltaic sources, is increasing. There are still major opportunities in this sector for foreign suppliers of renewable energy systems. Irish companies have already made ground in this area, in areas ranging from wind farm equipment to systems for monitoring business energy 40 use. Other strong areas of opportunity are in Italy’s solar, geothermal, onshore wind and infrastructure projects. Other opportunities: Financial services Italy’s banking and insurance sector has a reputation for being conservative and has traditionally been difficult to approach, but some opportunities exist in providing services or claims management. The advice often they will have a technology product, the IT department is quite vast and they tend to do their own thing internally but if it’s new, they are open to new ideas. References are especially important in Italy, where they can help to reassure clients that can be risk-averse. ICT for Travel Italy ranks fifth in the world in terms of the number of international tourist arrivals. Since the economic crisis in 2009 the Italian travel market has been under pressure. Cultural city trips especially continue to sustain demand. Online travel bookings are growing as a proportion of the total. Italy’s largest travel segment is the hotel industry, and the size of the hospitality sector far outweighs the combined revenue of traditional airlines and low-cost carriers. Many of the major Italian travel suppliers have been reluctant to invest in new technologies in the past and are starting to realise the importance of investing in innovative technologies to win over competition. Market opportunities can be seen in segments such as ancillary revenue services, reservation technologies and solutions and customer intelligence solutions. Italy offers also high potential for mobile travel shopping and booking, especially for hotels and airline tickets. In terms of a route to market, smaller Irish companies in particular could benefit from clustering, as this approach allows them to present more ideas and a combination of products to potential buyers. Finding the relevant person to pitch to is not easy in Italy, and Enterprise Ireland can help in identifying key decision makers which can help to shorten the business development process. Often, unless the person has a clearly understood title such as director of IT, CIO or CTO, it can be difficult to identify the relevant person, especially in smaller companies. Sometimes they don’t attend trade shows and you have to come to the market in order to find them. Entertainment and digital media Italy’s film and TV industry has historically focused on the domestic market but is now showing an increasing interest in co-productions and collaboration opportunities with foreign players as Italian companies look to innovate and find new ways of financing their projects. Ireland’s audio-visual content production sector in Ireland has grown significantly in recent years, with production activity increasing 18 per cent from 2012 to 2013. The Irish animation sector in particular has built a very strong international reputation. There are market opportunities in Italy for collaboration directly with the major Italian broadcasters as well as with the independent production companies under the Italian tax credit system, Ireland’s Section 481 film tax relief scheme, or the Eurimages project – European Cinema Support Fund. There has also been significant growth for e-book content, digital music, mobile entertainment and gaming. The television landscape, including news, is dominated by the public service broadcaster RAI and by Mediaset. RAI and Mediaset still achieve average nationwide audiences of approximately 41 percent and 37 percent respectively. The other major player is Sky Italia offering satellite broadcasting. Italian production companies generate a turnover of approximately €500 million per year with an employment (direct or indirect) of approximately 200,000 people. 41 HOW ENTERPRI SEI RELANDCAN HELPYOUSUCCEEDI NI TALY 7. How Enterprise Ireland can help you succeed in Italy Enterprise Ireland is committed to assisting clients in entering new markets and expanding your business in your current markets. A team of experienced marketing professionals is ready to help you through Enterprise Ireland’s overseas network of over 30 offices. Enterprise Ireland can help you build your business across Italy. An overview of our service offering is listed below: Pre-Visit Support Enterprise Ireland can provide: A sector overview A validation of the opportunity for your product/service An evaluation of your market entry strategy Suggested channels to market Competitor analysis Relevant contacts/suggested itinerary Summary of relevant market information resources. In-market support Services available include: Scheduled appointments with market contacts including Government Office facilities/sales incubator units Facilitation of buyer visits to Ireland Product launches/workshops at Enterprise Ireland offices/Irish Embassy/Consulates Networking opportunities at events held at EI offices, or the Irish Embassy in Italy Public Relations support and press release service Trade fairs/trade missions Market development support to access new regions/sectors in Italy Introductions to local development agencies for setting up in Italy Introductions to third-party professional service providers including legal, marketing/PR and recruitment services Access to external expertise and advice. Pathfinders Enterprise Ireland in Milan has developed links to a number of Italian pathfinders who assist Irish companies on a project basis. Currently, the team has identified pathfinders for the following sectors: telecoms, medical devices, pharmaceuticals (both chemical and services/engineering); equine; oil and gas; and banking. There is ongoing work to identify suitable pathfinders to expand coverage across more areas that are served by Irish companies. International Mentors Enterprise Ireland has built up an excellent network of individuals in Italy who are available to work with Irish client companies on developing their business. International mentors are individuals who work with your company on a one-to-one basis. The role of the mentor is to listen and advise, to suggest options, and help you to prioritise opportunities. The mentor gives you a fresh and objective perspective that is backed by significant in-market experience – while you remain in the driving seat throughout. Depending on your individual requirements, mentors can advise you on all key areas of company development, including: 42 More targeted sales and marketing Staff development and team building Expansion into new export markets Better management and financial systems Improved production and logistics Attracting outside investment Strategic business planning Management succession. Ministerial Events Throughout the year, Enterprise Ireland organises a number of initiatives which are led by Government representatives. These can include trade missions, trade shows, buyer lunches, press conferences etc. These are excellent opportunities for your company to be highly profiled with customers and in the wider media. Financial Assistance Enterprise Ireland client companies may be eligible to receive financial assistance towards the cost of researching or travelling to the market. For more information, contact Enterprise Ireland’s Milan office. Contacts in Italy Enterprise Ireland Milan office Enterprise Ireland Via De Amicis 53 20123 Milano Link to the office location on Google Maps Contact: Paul Maguire, Manager, Italy Phone: +39 02 880099224 Mobile: +39 348 7835500 Email: [email protected] Contact: Sara Bonomi, marketing executive, telecoms and software Phone: +39 02 880099233 Mobile: +39 346 3374909 Email: [email protected] Contact: Roberta Di Gesu, marketing executive, consumer products Phone: +39 02 8800991 Email: [email protected] Contact: Colin Madden, marketing executive Phone: +39 02 880099217 Email: [email protected] Diplomatic and Consular Information for Italy Embassy of Ireland Villa Spada Via Giacomo Medici 1-00153 Roma Phone: +39 06 5852381 Web: www.ambasciata-irlanda.it 43 Acknowledgements Enterprise Ireland wishes to thank everyone whose input and assistance was invaluable in preparing this report: The staff at Enterprise Ireland’s offices in Milan and Dublin Feargal Brady, Blueface Edmond Cahill & Mario Caizzone, Cahill-Caizzone & Associates Christophe Colussi, Burnside Autocyl William Egenton, Dromone Engineering Alessandro Felletti, MoneyMate Italia Paul Fitzpatrick, C&F Green Energy Luisa Gozzini, pharmaceuticals and life sciences pathfinder Gary Nolan, MDS Amiba Sean O’Sullivan, Seabrook Group Antonio Ruzzelli, Wattics Gordon Smith, consultant Paola Vercesi, Certification Europe. DISCLAIMER Information in this publication is intended to provide only a general outline of the subjects covered. It should neither be regarded as comprehensive nor sufficient for making decisions, nor should it be used in place of professional advice. Enterprise Ireland accepts no responsibility for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone using this material. Readers are encouraged to consult with professional advisors for advice concerning specific matters before making any decision. 44 Whi l eever yef f or thasbeenmadet oensur et heaccur acyoft hei nf or mat i on cont ai nedi nt hi spubl i cat i on,Ent er pr i sei r el andaccept snor esponsi bi l i t yf or er r or sorommi ssi ons. E nt er pr i s eI r el a nd T hePl a z a E a s tPoi ntBus i nes sPa r k Dubl i n3 T el :+35317272000 F a x :+35317272020 www. ent er pr i s ei r el a nd. c om E ur opea nUni on S t r uc t ur a l F unds ©E nt er pr i s eI r el a nd2015
