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In view of Italian timid economic recovery, innovation 360 degrees becomes focal point for setting policies entrepreneurial companies of all sizes. The timid recovery that is taking shape can be the spark to determine a revival of investment And particularly those in new technologies and new products in order to cope with increasing competition from the Asian market. The engineer must then adopt policies and behavior as much as possible targeted innovation and continuous quality improvement, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and their consequences. In particular, the parable of Florio - because this is parable, with a rise, peak and decline - is a "topos" undisputed economic dynamics of those who, over the past two centuries have accompanied, in Sicily and elsewhere The rapid emergence of substantial assets and economic empires, and their decline. When we speak of Florio, we are talking about a real Dynasty Imperial, the enormous economic power, wealth exterminated, a prestigious international field, and connected with the Sicilian society of his time. But the causes of their economic decline between late nineteenth and early twentieth century, have been repeatedly analyzed by historians and economists without being able to give a convincing explanation. Probably what happened to a number of factors, such as the development of the industrial north, the lack of support from the central government, but also the attitude of Florio who, after creating an empire that extended from Sicily, with its economic activities, part of going even in the United States, were not in a position to innovate. This is the fate of companies of all sizes - that in the modern competitive market should not adopt a policy of continuous improvement and the creation of new market. Similar, in many respects, the story of other nouveau riche, that Florio is the classic "escalation" economic, which, thanks to their ingenuity and their final merchant and entrepreneurial talent, managed to tap the absolute summit of the social pyramid . Not surprisingly, simple chemists, which were started in a turn of the century became the undisputed rulers of economic and socio-cultural landscape of their time.
The family Florio began his ascent in the nineteenth century, when the great families of nobility Bourbon are undertaken to decline: Vincenzo Florio, born in Calabria in 1799 Bagnara, whose family had arrived in Sicily in exile, following the King of Naples in Napoleonic period, first began trading in spices and already in 1841, as an agent of Rothschild, founded a factory in Palermo steam machines, the only of the island. It was then the turn of foundry Oretea, while Vincent became the second shareholder of a shipping company i n g l e s e, f o n a-d e n t m or future fleet, and concerned for the rehabilitation of port structures Palermo. On the death of Vincent in 1868, a succession between the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Ignatius Florio senior and junior Ignatius Florio, second and third generation of the dynasty: the first is so rich that we can buy an archipelago, Egadi Islands, and a series of tuna. Continuing political fundraising Vincenzo, Florio invest wisely in a number of areas and the secret of their success lies in a deep diversification of their interests: wine industry (for more than 200 years, the brand is synonymous with Florio marsala in the world; Founded in 1833, Florio cellars tufa stone in 1861 counted 14 canopies long by 160 to 214 meters each), industry (production of new shipyards of Palermo), conservative industry for the processing of fish (due to their creation and the industrialization of the method of conservation of tuna "oil"), luxury hotels, mining industry (sulfur mines throughout Sicily), artistic ceramic industry (acquired by Richard, the death of its founder). In short: the Compagnia di Navigazione "Florio became one of the first European fleet and took thanks to a series of far reaching economic agreements with the Italian and Anglo-Saxon members, the monopoly of commercial transportation and passenger ship in the Mediterranean (in 1876 the fleet Florio could count on 29 ships in 1880 and began connecting with New York by ship). The Florio, in the years of reconstruction post, gave work to thousands of people took to Sicily and the south, the role that had some years later Fiat for the north. Between the end of 1800 and beginning of 1900, Sicily is one of the most crowded stations and weather becomes center of Palermo meeting dell'člite cosmopolitan.
Capital One, the European Union border, where arriving Re, princes, emperors, nobles and aristocrats from all over Europe. In parties, in meetings sumptuous mundane, it captures the character of a city bright new. And at the center of every festival or public meeting we are Florio, in particular Franca Florio, the wife of Ignatius. Within three years becomes the protagonist of the life of Palermo and her husband alongside their personal relationships: organizes dinners and banquets in honor of bankers Rothschild, which is the representative Florio in Sicily, and then Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy with the princess Elena D'Orleans, and especially now Kaiser Wilhelm II family friend. Attend house Florio major cultural figures of the time, as D'annunzio, Leoncavallo, Caruso. Since 1906, for about twenty years, Ignatius Florio Jr. (son of Ignatius senior) underwrites management Teatro Massimo, as part of its project to make Palermo an international center. The brother of Ignatius jr, Vincenzo Florio Jr. (1883-1959), fond of cars and road rider himself, it must be the establishment in 1906 of the Targa Florio, a race car entered the myth of the Italian race.
THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINE
But from this moment on the empire of Florio starts to inexorable decline of what had seemed a miracle industrial South, today remains the memory of a world faded. The crisis in shipbuilding and competition with products of low quality and cheap wine in the field, the lack of new investment and aid from the central government, the immobility of the family despite awareness of the imminent decline, it causes heavy debt and slowly sale or disappearance of all companies Florio. Despite everything, not Florio never failed: Ignatius Florio jr not fled their responsibilities, sold all societies and the entire family to pay its debts until the last penny, then retiring to private life. An epilogue that is even more stark comparison with the current economic landscape, where bankruptcies seem the most natural conclusion of activities often barely profitable. What then determined as a rapid decline and the decline of an empire created with such foresight? A series of historical circumstances and adverse events certainly influenced in a negative way, but primarily the lack of an innovative attitude of the last descendants of the dynasty Florio. Contrary to what was the founder Vincenzo Florio in the first half of the nineteenth century, they do not diversificarono their interests into new markets and not invested in new technologies available at the beginning of the twentieth century, simply trying to maintain market positions already acquired, without opening new and more profitable. The maintenance or expansion of market positions at the Florio - like today - can then be pursued only with a sound policy.
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