The turnaround planned by the old management
A metamorphosis studied at the table, examined together with the consultants and made to metabolize by the employees. This is what Abiogen, a Pisan company active in the pharmaceutical field, has experienced since 2004, when the president and CEO Massimo DiMartino, has decided to reinvent the entire production and corporate structure. «Until 2001 the company performed well, thanks to its strong specialization and investments in research». No budget problems, and indeed several ideas that turned into patents. Yet something breaks: the investment of 40 million euros for the new factory in Pisa becomes difficult to sustain due to a fiscal policy which, at the time, did not incentivize the sector. From one year to the next, the company's net profitability declines by 15 percent. «Actually we could have continued to get by like this for a long time but it would have been short-sighted. A change was needed above all in perspective», the president now recalls. Thus begins the transformation project: a three-year process shared by management and consultancy firms, which started in 2004 and is still being completed.
"We have reduced our divisions from the three we had to two, focusing on research and production specialization and at the same time we have strengthened the staff dedicated to the study of research projects around the world and to competitor analysis," says Di Martino. Instead of cutting, the management also chooses to boost the number of employees which rise from 330 to almost 400. And from a pharmaceutical company that produces only for itself, Abiogen also begins to produce for other large pharmaceutical companies, from Novartis to Bayer, up to Dompè. «Some niche productions are uneconomical for multinationals used to dealing with large numbers. We focused on these drugs and it worked." Abiogen has gone from 6 million pieces produced in 1998 to over 20 million pieces last year, while the turnover has grown from 66.5 million euros in 2003 to around 70 this year. A boom that arrived thanks to intuition, but not dictated by the crisis. Il Sole 24 Ore of 19/12/2007 JOB24 p. 25 LD
