Why we need to stop being afraid of growing
When Bending Spoons filed for a listing on Wall Street, many American observers reacted with surprise to the news because of the company’s profile and origins: a business founded in Milan that, after building a global software acquisition strategy, chose the world’s leading financial market to support its growth.
Americans’ surprise should not surprise us. For decades, Italy has been regarded as the homeland of small businesses, hidden champions, and family-owned companies capable of excelling in niche markets but rarely interested in becoming large. Bending Spoons instead represents a generation of entrepreneurs that sees growth as a necessity. Perhaps it is a sign that something is changing in the country.
In recent months, the issue of scale has returned to the center of the economic debate. It can be seen in the deals reshaping the banking sector, in startups that target international markets from day one, and in younger generations of entrepreneurs who seem less attached to the idea that “small is beautiful.” This shift in perspective comes at the right time, because the model that has supported Italian capitalism over the past few decades is now showing increasingly evident limitations. Italy still has the highest number in Europe of small and very small businesses (with revenues between €1 million and €10 million): around 180,000, compared with 120,000 in France and fewer than 50,000 in the United Kingdom. But when looking at mid-sized companies with revenues between €10 million and €50 million—businesses with the potential to become large—the structural problem becomes clear: there are only 30,000 of them, while Germany has nearly 90,000.
In today’s economy, size has become a factor of resilience. Repeated crises such as the pandemic, wars, energy shocks, and tensions in global value chains have shown that small companies, which often consider themselves more flexible, are in fact also more fragile. And that fragility risks becoming a full-blown emergency when combined with another characteristic of Italian capitalism: generational succession. Among Italian family businesses with revenues above €10 million, around 50,000 are still controlled by their founding families. Of these, roughly 40% are led by the first generation. International statistics indicate that the first generational transition fails in 70% of cases. If these percentages hold true, more than 14,000 Italian companies may fail to survive the generational handover in the coming years.
Under these conditions, growth becomes a survival strategy, because larger companies invest more in technology, have access to more diversified sources of capital, attract stronger managerial talent, and are better able to withstand shocks. They are more likely to navigate leadership transitions successfully and have greater opportunities to find industrial or financial partners when markets change.
Growth, however, requires stronger governance, access to sophisticated financial tools, the ability to carry out acquisitions, strategic vision, and appropriate organizational structures. Above all, it requires a cultural shift: moving from an obsession with preservation to an obsession with the future. The question every entrepreneur should be asking today is not about next quarter’s results, but about the next generation. Will my company still exist thirty years from now in the form it exists today? If the answer is uncertain, then growth is a necessity.
To support this transformation, companies need capabilities that many have not yet developed. These are precisely the challenges addressed by the Management Program per imprese in crescita. Strategia, governance e innovazione program (in Italian), designed for entrepreneurs, next-generation family business leaders, managers, and executives who view growth as a strategic priority for their company’s future.
