Best Performance Award honors Italian companies championing sustainable development

SDA BOCCONI, J.P. MORGAN PRIVATE BANK, PWC, THOMSON REUTERS AND GRUPPO24ORE LAUNCH THE FIRST EDITION OF THE AWARD, AIMING TO RECOGNISE ITALIAN COMPANIES' EXCELLENCE IN GENERATING ECONOMIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL VALUE.

SDA Bocconi School of Management, in partnership with J.P. Morgan Private Bank, PwC, Thomson Reuters and Gruppo24Ore, launches the Best Performance Award to honor Italian enterprises capable of generating economic, technological, human, social and environmental value, with overall sustainable approach.
The award process will select companies, with revenues between €25 and €500 million, able to pursue business continuity while respecting human and environmental (Green & Social); innovative (Innovation & Technology); economic (Value Added) objectives.
The process consists of three steps:

1. Analysis of economic and financial data of companies within specific economic and financial parameters
2. Analysis of data from questionnaires previously submitted to a short list of the companies that have passed the first-phase selection
3. Additional analysis will be carried out on the data from the one-to-one interviews that SDA Bocconi will perform on the enterprises which will have passed the second-phase selection as well.

 
All the applicant companies have to be independent from a foreign group and operate in industrial sectors; they should have an EBITDA margin higher then their sector’s and display a balanced net financial position (PFN/EBITDA ratio) below 3.
Every year five companies will be awarded, considering the following parameters:

1. Absolute Best Perfomer
2. Best Performer “Small” category (revenue between €25 and €50 million)
3. Best Performer “Medium” category (revenue between €51 and €250 million)
4. Best Performer “Medium-Large” category (revenue between €251 and €500 million)
5. Best Performer in an area which will be defined annually.

 
“Nowadays it is important to adapt and lead the change in a sustainable way. This is the only way to be competitive in the mid-to-long term, as a company level and as a Country”. “We are convinced that Italy has several leading examples. The objective is to recognise the value and give voice to these excellences! We want to “map” the number ones and define the benchmarks of a virtuous growth strategy” Maurizio Dallocchio and Leonardo Etro, Scientific Directors of the Project, comment.
 
“We are well aware of the extraordinary value of the companies in Italy where J.P. Morgan has been operating for over a century. It is a privilege to work every day alongside entrepreneurs who are authentic champions of the Italian excellence in the world, capable of creating highly creative, technological and innovative products, and generating long-lasting value for their companies and the communities they operate in. SDA Bocconi’s Best Performance Award initiative will highlight the numerous qualities of the Italian entrepreneurial system”, Riccardo Pironti, Head of J.P. Morgan Private Bank Italy affirms.

“PwC joins with enthusiasm SDA Bocconi’s proposal”, Francesco Ferrara, PwC Partner affirms. “We are in complete accordance with the idea of sustainable development promoted by the award. Indeed, we consider that going beyond the purely financial reporting - highlighting the human, environmental and innovative aspects as an integral part of a company’s value - becomes more and more relevant in a transparency and informative perspective. Moreover, we believe that the Italian SMEs have carried out significant practices even in these areas and this award aims to spotlight the excellences”.
 

by Susanna Della Vedova