Managerial Insights

2025-02-19 Donato Masciandaro

Trump, the Dollar and the Euro

In the wake of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States, global attention has turned to the future of the dollar and its implications for the world economy. From a short-term economic analysis perspective, the dollar has appreciated, influenced in part by the tariff policies first announced and later implemented by the newly elected president. What does this mean for the euro? A depreciation of our currency increases the risk of inflation. This is a scenario that the European Central Bank (ECB) is well aware of, yet it does not seem to be a pressing concern ...

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2025-02-11 Shiva Sadat Mostafavi

Branded Apps & Coupons: Keys to Customer Loyalty

In today’s fiercely competitive retail landscape, the challenge of keeping customers engaged and encouraging repeat visits is greater than ever. Retailers are increasingly turning to digital solutions like branded apps and coupons to tackle this issue head-on. The big question is: how can these tools not only attract customers but also keep them loyal and increase their spending over time? Branded Apps: Building Stronger Connections First of all, we focused on branded apps, which offer a unique opportunity for retailers to create more meaningful connections with their customers. Through an ...

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2025-02-06 Stefano Caselli

Companies, Entrepreneurs, and Growth: Guido’s Open Challenges

Guido Corbetta never failed to make an impression on people. Indeed, he left a deep, indelible mark, a legacy of ideas and challenges that are now ours to nurture and grow. Guido not only ran our Economia & Management magazine, he also held many roles at SDA and the University. But more than all this, he paved new paths, with his signature style that always characterized everything he did. And thinking of these new paths, family businesses are what immediately come to mind, the common theme in all his studies and all his work. This was his biggest passion, what drove him to tackle issues like ...

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2025-01-27 Management Tips

Ambidexterity: Imagining the Future While Honoring Identity

Tex Willer, the legendary comic book hero, is an unbeatable gunslinger. Although he has no superpowers, his ambidextrous ability to handle two Colt 45s with precision makes him a force to be reckoned with. Companies should draw inspiration from this ambidextrous prowess, which is, in essence, the ability of individuals and organizations to balance innovation with efficiency, to strike an equilibrium between certainty and new possibilities. While it’s essential to avoid overloading – how can one do everything simultaneously and do it well? – it’s equally critical for companies to adopt ...

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2025-01-20 Gianmarco Ottaviano

Italy's Economic Future: What Exports Reveal

Financially speaking, whether exports exceed imports or vice versa is generally insignificant. Exports represent surplus goods and services that cannot be absorbed domestically and that our trade partners kindly accept in exchange for goods and services we lack. When exports surpass imports, we effectively extend credit to foreign customers; when the reverse happens, we take on debt with them. Sometimes it is better to lend, other times to borrow. As long as debts are eventually settled, exports and imports hold equal importance. So, why is discussing exports in Italy so important? There are several ...

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2025-01-14 Lorenzo Diaferia, Leonardo Maria De Rossi, Gianluca Salviotti

Exploring the Market and Understanding AI Applications

This phase marks the initial step toward embracing AI. Ideally, the analysis of how to integrate technology into a company should stem solely from business needs, opportunities, and objectives. The ultimate goal should be solving a problem, which will dictate the choice of technology. However, from a pragmatic perspective, technology cannot be utilized without understanding its potential. Therefore, it is crucial to begin with mapping and analyzing the external market environment. One effective method for external market monitoring is conducting exploratory scouting. A technology scouting process ...

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2025-01-07 Severino Meregalli

Creating Value with AI: Post-Digital Business Strategies

Since 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has firmly established itself as a central topic on the innovation agendas of companies across a wide range of industries. From the first months of the launch of generative AI tools with easy-to-use interfaces targeting the consumer market, the scale of this phenomenon has been clear. OpenAI's ChatGPT, for instance, counted 100 million users within two months of its debut, becoming the fastest growing digital service ever. Fast forward to 2024, and the market’s overall focus on generative AI is unmistakable, as evidenced by the upsurge in investments ...

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2024-12-23 Sandro Castaldo

In Search of Impact

How can we improve the impact of scientific research on management practice and create real value for business and society, while avoiding the “ivory tower” isolation effect of academia? This question is one of the overarching challenges facing many of today’s management disciplines. Indeed, the most innovative and rapidly developing economies are the ones that are able to produce high-impact research. For this reason, the need for a closer dialogue between academic research and management practice is now widely recognized, not only by academics and research centers, but also by European ...

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2024-12-20 Andrea Beltratti e Alessia Bezzecchi

Real Estate Securitizations 7.2: Benefits for Corporate Finance

Europe is undergoing a gradual transition that is reshaping the relationship between financial resources provided by intermediaries and those raised from the markets. As noted by President Draghi a decade ago, the financing landscape in Europe was significantly different from that in the United States, with intermediaries dominating the European continent and markets prevailing in the US. The bank-centric model proved to be less resilient during the crisis of peripheral countries, where the need to recapitalize banks led to credit tightening, which disproportionately affected small and medium-sized ...

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2024-12-16 Fanny Nardi

Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Networking: The Growth Engine of a Startup

The story of AWMS is that of a startup that, within just a few years, transformed an innovative idea into a thriving business, culminating in its strategic acquisition by the Zucchetti Group, a leader in software solutions in Italy. What might seem to be “just” a case of technological growth is, in fact, a lesson in entrepreneurship, strategic vision, and networking - one that can inspire anyone striving to turn a startup into a leading player in a competitive market. From idea to realizationFounded in 2019, AWMS emerged from a collaboration with Electrolux, a Swedish multinational, to address ...

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