“An industry in change” Interview with Dario Corbetta, Acimall director

Just before Ligna, we decided to meet Dario Corbetta, Acimall director, to analyze the current season for the woodworking technology industry.

We confess: we only had to stand up from our desk and move into the next office to interview Dario Corbetta. The close relationship between this magazine and Acimall, the association of Italian manufacturers of woodworking machinery and tools, is well-knows, but we always take the opportunity to repeat that Corbetta has different roles: he is the manager of the magazine you are reading, of the association and of the biennial exhibition Xylexpo. He has always been working in this industry, serving for a long time as Acimall’s Studies office and marketing manager, so we could not find anyone better to talk about the Italian industry, the sector in general, the association and – why not – the upcoming Ligna.

“We can start with an overview of our own organization”, Corbetta says.“Acimall has changed like the entire industry: our association has survived and reacted to the crisis, just like the entire wood technology business. We have faced and overcome very difficult years, and the significant improvements we are seeing will help forget the scars that the crisis has left on the whole industry.

Our industry is facing a historical change, which is a necessary step to operate on more and more demanding and challenging markets, and most of all, in a really global economy. Today, as I said, the industry is back to growth and Acimall has fully restored its operating role, proving to be able to transform, turning into a swifter and leaner organization, in line with its needs and opportunities, more than ever focused on “facts”, on the real needs of companies”.

What do you mean?

“The tasks of a Confindustria member association are clear. First of all industry promotion, which is the real corporate mission, i.e. representing the interests of the sector at political, economic and institutional level. Our priority, of course, is to promote the Italian industry, both on a global scale and on the domestic market, which is still the most important destination for our companies, despite an average export share close to 80 percent.

By what means? First of all, by interacting with Ice, the Italian agency for the international promotion and globalization of Italian companies, for the organization of and participation in trade fairs, seminars, events, workshops, or inviting delegations of international operators. We organize an exhibition, Xylexpo, held in May in even-numbered years, which is definitely a world-class event by number and quality of exhibitors and visitors, and an excellent showcase for “made in Italy”, a match that our industry plays at home, in its own stadium, before its own supporters. I anticipate your question: it’s true that Xylexpo has been going through a stormy decade, but we can say now that the situation has changed and the entire industry is represented at our exhibition, with no difference between “big” and “small”, with everyone committed to keep “at home” one of the most important events in the global scenario, it’s the only Italian exhibition with no competitor that can threaten its leadership.Let me add that we have already started working for the 2018 edition, to be held from 8 to 12 May, and once again we will be included in the short list of strategic exhibitions for Italian economy, gaining access to financial funds to increase the attractiveness of the Milan days. We have another vehicle I love to mention, namely our magazines Xylon and Xylon International, which were created to promote industry culture and have become an established and recognized not only by the Italian industry of machinery and technology. This year, Xylon is celebrating the thirtieth foundation anniversary, a milestone we will celebrate properly”.

What about the economic situation?

“We are recovering, as I mentioned before, from a season when our industry lost 40 percent of its turnover on the whole. A dramatic shock which had an impact on all association activities. But we are still here, with our exhibition and all our initiatives, ready to work for an industry that is recovering quickly: things are going much better on the domestic market, also thanks to the incentives of the “Industria 4.0” plan, super and hyper-mortgages that will generate positive results, and the Sabatini law that is still applicable. These are major drivers, which we hope will become stable, we are working on that within Federmacchine, otherwise we simply risk to “dope the market”, generating fluctuations that result into new instability.
This is evidence of our action in collaboration with other associations within Federmacchine: these incentives that have helped revive the industry of instrumental goods were introduced as a result of the federation’s lobbying action, a federation that gathers the machine tools manufacturers associations of several industries, including Acimall. Together we build a critical mass and we can act as key partners for the economic policies adopted by the government for the Italian manufacturing industry, which is ultimately the main beneficiary of such actions”.

Mr. Corbetta, how and how much has this industry changed?
“I can answer by telling you that, today, the Italian wood technology sector includes two big industrial groups that in recent years have further strengthened their position and currently account for over 50 percent of industry turnover.
They were the first to recover from the crisis, as they have the potential to control their enterprise in the most effective way: it’s true that the entire industry has recorded significant growth rates, but they have achieved the best performance, and as a matter of fact, the gap between “big” and “small” has widened.This is a key topic, in our opinion. The structure of the Italian wood machinery industry is dominated by two giants, followed at a distance by a group of medium companies, and far behind a multitude of small enterprises that are actually micro businesses, handicraft companies with excellent skills that must make a huge effort to understand they have to collaborate, in order to achieve the critical mass required to operate successfully on a global scale. For at least a decade, Acimall has been trying to promote the aggregation of smaller businesses offering great value and capable of providing tailor-made solutions to customers, near or far; however, these companies are constrained to what we call a global niche and they need to take their undisputed ingenuity and expertise all over the world, with investments and costs that often have a significant impact on operating margins.
They don’t have an industrial, sales, promotion and product communication organization; big companies have long recognized the potential of this combination of skills and they have invested constantly. I must admit that the very few examples of collaboration we have seen so far have yielded poor results, unless they have ended up with an acquisition, a change of ownership…

Our task as association – Corbetta continues – is to do our best so that everyone is properly represented, which requires strong commitment to coordinate often diverging interests. We are not talking about two conflicting spheres, quite the opposite. Very often, the bigger brands open new roads which are then taken by the others, although this does not hide the fact that bigger and stronger organizations would be better off to achieve greater results”.

“Change has been huge – Corbetta adds – in terms of technological innovation, with a strong impact on the furniture and woodworking business. Now we are facing a new season, with an increasing focus on transferring such contents to handicraft.

The flexibility and multifunctionality of working centers has replaced conventional machines, as witnessed by the decision of many companies to quit the business of traditional machinery, where the entry level is lower and lower, and in the past two decades we have seen the rise of low-cost manufacturers, especially from Asia, offering much cheaper products.

The future belongs to “user friendly” working centers, which will be the equivalent of routers and band saws for their ease of use, provided vendors can offer modular solutions affordable to many. I really believe that an industry with updated technological resources might also be more attractive for young people, rejuvenating the image of the joiner”.

Let’s give a look into the future…

“Today we represent 162 companies, basically the entire industry. According to a recent survey, there are some eighty companies which are not Acimall members, but the wood industry is a marginal business for all of them. In the past decade, about sixty companies have disappeared, either because they were taken over or they went out of business, in line with the rest of the Italian and international industry. But let me give you a comparative figure: our German counterpart, Vdma, has about one hundred members, all bigger than ours…

The real challenge is competition with Chinese competitors, who can benefit from a huge domestic market and, in addition, are often listed on Asian stock exchanges and have massive cash flows, so that they can make acquisitions in Europe and in Italy. It will be strategic for them to incorporate major brands so that they are no longer associated to low-quality products. I think we will soon realize what is happening and the consequences of this situation, both positive and negative…”