With Business Greatness Comes Responsibility
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With Business Greatness Comes Responsibility

FOR ROBERTO SCIOLLI, BOCCONI ALUMNUS AND CFO OF GUIDO BERLUCCHI, TECHNOLOGY IS IMPORTANT AS LONG AS IT IS USED TO IMPROVE PRODUCTION PROCESSES AND THE CONDITIONS OF THOSE WHO WORK IN THE COMPANY

A company and a territory that are tied indissolubly like nowhere else. Because the Guido Berlucchi company, born from minds of Guido Berlucchi and Francesco Ziliani in the mid-1950s, is the creator of a product, a territory, a brand, Franciacorta, which can be considered the symbolic region of Italian quality bubblies. In fact, it was ​​Francesco Ziliani who conceived the first bottle of Franciacorta in 1961. This year, the company celebrates the 60th anniversary of that intuition and the 90th birthday of the founder. Roberto Sciolli, who graduated in Business Administration from Bocconi in 1989, joined Berlucchi in 1997 and now holds the position of CFO of the company.

Over the last two decades, the company has changed but above all the context in which it must operate has evolved: "Wineries are generally family businesses with a certain degree of capitalization and fixed assets. Wealth as measured by total assets is generally quite high. In the sparkling wine sector", explains Roberto Sciolli," there is also a certain degree of profitability and if twenty years ago the wine industry, but also the agri-food sector as a whole, was not of interest to large financial institutions, now it is not it's no longer the case. This has led companies to equip themselves with a more managerial structure”.

In recent years, the surge in interest for the world of wine has led to the emergence of phenomena, such as wine routes and visits to cellars, which represent new forms of income but also a way to put the final consumer in contact with companies. How does a large company like Berlucchi (over 4 million bottles produced annually) fit into this context? "Berlucchi has always given great importance to hospitality", says Sciolli, "to the point that we have had a department dedicated to hospitality for a few years now. It is not a division that generates major revenues, but it is fundamental from the point of view of communication and puts us in direct contact with the consumer, who over the years has become increasingly critical and demanding". In the area in which it operates Guido Berlucchi is the largest company, as well as the business pioneer. A great honor but also a great responsibility: "All the activities that the company carries out have a significant impact on the territory and for this reason we carefully calculate our moves ", continues Roberto Sciolli, "we have always worked with foresight, not aiming for an indiscriminate amount of production but factoring in from the start the aspects of quality and sustainability. For us, technology, which has made great progress in the wine industry as well, is above all about protecting the environment and improving the quality of every production aspect. And the lives of those who work in the company".
 
SHORT BIO
Roberto Sciolli, Bocconi class of 1989 in Business Administration and Chief Financial Officer of Berlucchi recalls that “Professor Gianfranco Piantoni, shortly before the end of our studies, reminded us that you have to be a great person to be a great manager. This is a lesson that I have always carried with me and in a family business like Berlucchi I was able to combine the two aspects well. From a more technical point of view, the University has given me very solid foundations, so much so that every now and then I happen to open old Bocconi textbooks and discover that they were already ahead of their time 30 years ago".

by Davide Ripamonti

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