Confindustria

With over 100 years of history, Confindustria has seen a long series of social, political and economic transformations in which it has become the protagonist.
He followed, anticipated and at the same time directed the transformations of the industrial system: from steam production to electricity, from industrial automation to the advent of computers, to digitalisation, to the intelligent factory.

In parallel with these changes, Italian manufacturing has stood out for its strong attention to design and creativity, giving life to the Italian Style. A journey lasting over a century which has seen Italy gradually and tenaciously emerge from a condition of economic backwardness to become an advanced industrial country, 7th in the world and 2nd in Europe.

Through a process led by the most dynamic and innovative entrepreneurs, the General Confederation of Italian Industry was born in 1910. Initially intended to defend the interests of capital (at a time when the General Confederation of Labor had been created 4 years earlier), Confindustria and its companies have evolved more and more, accompanying the changes in society and the economy.

After the first years in Turin, Confindustria moved to Rome in 1919, to follow and assist the post-war industrial reconversion. This process, which resulted in the subsequent "red two years" and strengthened by political instability and serious financial difficulties, had its culmination in the advent of fascism, under which Confindustria first took the name of "General Fascist Confederation of Italian Industry" (1926) and then of "Fascist Confederation of Industrialists" (1934).

In the post-war period, during the post-war reconstruction and in the years of the "economic boom", Confindustria returned to assume a leading role. It would be the fulcrum and driving force of renewed entrepreneurial development, especially in what would increasingly become its catchment area: the SMEs.
Many large companies which, in the midst of the great crisis of the 1930s, had passed into public hands and which had distanced themselves from Confindustria in 1957 (after the establishment of the Ministry of State Participations), returned following privatisations.

Over the years, the Confederations membership base has strengthened in quantitative and qualitative terms thanks to the contribution of ideas and energy from a growing number of heterogeneous production units. It was precisely the entrepreneurs - the essential fulcrum of the Association - who, aware of their own aptitudes and potential, gave an unparalleled contribution to the development of relationships with civil society, with local realities and institutions, with the cultural and professional world .

In the years of birth of the European Economic Community, Confindustria promoted the European System, establishing its own headquarters in Brussels in 1958, to grasp and support the development of policies that led to the creation of a new model of collaboration between countries, founded on peace and based on the free market.

Confindustria has progressively taken on an increasingly complex and widespread appearance, both in its territorial and category structures, supporting a multifaceted system capable of operating in synergy with its companies. The dynamism of those companies that were able to create, in the years that followed the economic boom, the uniqueness of Italian industrial districts, defined as "large factories without walls" and characterized by a very strong link between artisan knowledge, Italian manufacturing and territory. A model that has transformed "Italian know-how" into a distinctive method capable of making the Italian industry innovative, versatile, creative, reactive, competitive and successful, especially on global markets.

But the metamorphoses have gone well beyond European borders: globalization and the advent of new technologies have brought with them the phenomena of production delocalisation, the expansion and demolition of pre-existing market borders and, overall, a need for review of production systems and the way of understanding the industrial economy in the classical sense.

To face the new challenges, Confindustria has increasingly emerged as an inclusive entity, capable of understanding needs from within in order to communicate effectively with the outside, in the name of a new way of doing business that sees innovation and sustainability the strategic factors of industrial policies and corporate governance.

Thanks to an increasingly pluralist configuration and the innovative vocation that characterizes it, its responsibilities have been perfected in the definition of proposals on the major issues for the development and growth of the country through dialogue and discussion with the other components of society.