PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS OF THE 7TH CENSUS OF THE BUSINESSES WORKING IN THE APUAN-VERSILIAN DISTRICT:
1,093 COMPANIES WITH 6,622 EMPLOYEES WORKING IN MARBLE, 164 COMPANIES WITH 1,452 WORKING IN SIDELINE BUSINESSES.
70% OF EMPLOYEES WORK IN PROCESSING. A 20% INCREASE IN TURNOVER.

Today, 1,093 companies work in the stone sector in the Apuan-Versilian district, with 6,622 employees, and 164 sideline businesses with 1,452 employees, while employment has decreased by 15.5% over the last four years. These are some of the most significant figures that emerge from a reading of the seventh census taken by Internazionale Marmi e Macchine Carrara S.p.A., with the assistance of the Chamber of Commerce, and illustrated at a conference held at IMM's premises.

The previous census had been taken by IMM in 1996, and the occasion has been extremely useful to show the changes that the district has been experiencing over the last four years, a period that has been hard for the whole sector both in Italy and abroad, as recalled by IMM President Luigi Danesi as he opened the meeting, since some essential elements have dramatically changed both locally and internationally.

The crisis of the traditional Far Eastern market, the bursting in of China, one of the greatest producers in the world, the competitive growth of new producing and processing companies, alongside an increased global competition among all producers at all latitudes, are some of the elements that come up clearest in the scenario that has taken shape over the last few years.

Reading the data that emerge from the work and analysis conducted by Internazionale Marmi e Macchine is specially important for everyone, in particular for stone businesses, as stated by Giulio Conti, President of the Chamber of Commerce, since they are essential to develop effective response strategies for the companies and the entire industry to face up to the challenges brought in by the markets.

Then, it was the turn of Silvana Napoli, manager of IMM's Research Department, in charge of co-ordinating data collection and processing, who took the floor and recalled first of all that, along with international processes, others, less commercial but more strategic, processes have taken place, which are equally important for the local district and the entire sector, such as the different mix of competitive factors that leads the international confrontation to be more and more based on a series of factors that confront and set off each other, where the balance among the end-price, the delivery time and the market range which the product falls within plays an essential role.

In this scenario, new technologies and new methods must be implemented, that play
a more and more crucial role even in the stone sector, while the growth of new jobs and new roles in charge of controlling, co-ordinating and searching for supplies, makes it more and more difficult to identify specialist demand, and the changes under way in the architectural and building decision-making processes and in the companies engaged in the supply of materials are not completely defined yet.

The Tuscan district has certainly been affected by those changes that are related to the reopening of the North American market on levels that are completely different from those of the Eighties, in Europe the substantial weight of exports to Germany, the growth of other domestic production centres, not only in Northern Italy, but also in the South, having some remarkable examples in Naples and Campania, which have turned into a great processing centre serving the whole south of Italy, while the Veneto district now imports more than the Tuscan one.

In this scenario, the Tuscan district is the one that, with its complexity, best reflects the entire national sector and, even if its leadership has been slightly downsized, it stills remains a comprehensive model in all respects: it is not by chance that the Apuan-Versilian district, along with the Veneto one, with 16% of domestic employment in the sector, covers over 50% of the overall exports.

In the light of these necessary general assumptions, figures and comparisons take on a more specific value: the companies engaged in the stone sector proper amount, in the Apuan-Ligurian-Versilian district, to 1,093, with 6,622 employees, versus 1,141 companies and 7,841 employees in 1996 and a resulting 15.5% decrease in the number of employed people over the four years considered. Carrara and Massa, with 555 companies and 3,595 employees (54.2% of the entire sector), have the highest number of companies and employees, followed by Versilia, with 449 companies and 2,395 employees (36%).

In the sideline businesses (manufacture of machinery, abrasives, packaging and services), the number of working companies is 164, with a total number of 1,452 employees. The highest number of companies is concentrated in the province of Massa Carrara (116, with 168 employees, making up 73.6% of employment), while Versilia can rely on 38 companies and 272 employees.

This downsizing has mainly affected the operating steps of the system, leading to a mean corporate reduction that has mainly concerned processing, while it did not touch trade at all; large processing companies have been significantly affected, there has been a growth in micro-businesses which are often not real businesses, but rather a supply of work or services, often s a spin-off for larger companies.

Technology has gone on, by procedurising more and more stages of their productive processes, systematically brining in automatism and numeric controls, which have increased productivity.

A substantial share of companies, close to the threshold of 5 employees, has grown, while the density of micro-businesses, which other sectors call the "VAT people", has increased.

Extremely interesting facts emerge on the different segments of the sector, quarrying, processing and trade.
Quarrying has been found to be, once again, a highly strategic segment of the production process for the local working model which the district relies on. Over these years, the quarrying sector has been particularly exposed to some issues, not only safety or environmental protection, but also all that surrounds quality and product certification, awareness of which has been only recently raised, however not yet in a sufficiently operative manner.

A productive development is occurring in this segment, with a change in the approach to the use of a few tools that have been used in quarries for a long time, but that are now used with new procedures and in new applications, resulting in a process innovation level that goes hand in hand with the introduction of new machines, moving the frontier of innovative methods forward and forward.

Processing, which is the most numerous component of the entire productive process, covers 70% of the sector, thus serving locally, much more than the other steps, the function of spreading the wealth generated by the sector through the "total wages" instrument. And this is the segment which has suffered most over the last four years, both in terms of employment and exports and market leadership, both in Italy and abroad. It remains, however, the stronghold of the entire productive model, playing a role that is not purely strategic, and on which the weight of the comparison with the rest of the world is heaviest. Versilia has the highest number of companies engaged in this segment (346, with 2,019 employees), while the area of Carrara and Massa can rely on 259 companies, with 2,294 employees, equal to 49.3%.

The overall decrease in the number of employees mostly affected this segment, though the number of companies has not decreased, but the result is that small- and very small-size businesses now weigh more.

Companies tend to specialise, by choosing between marble and granite, and, while the human component of specialisation reconverts itself and takes on a new role, plants incur a whole range of costs that were much more hidden and more manageable before, with a strong permanence of flexibility. 44% of the companies that work most with marble use materials that mainly come from the Apuan Alps, and these businesses employ a total of 33,1% people, i.e. a mean number which is lower than the average of the industry.
The trading sector is the smoothest of the entire structure, and has its highest concentration of companies in the area of Massa Carrara rather than in Versilia.
Even before such strong reorganisations, since 1996 the recorded overall turnover has been increasing by a statistically estimated 20%, as against a decrease both in the number of companies (-4.2%) and in the number of employees (-15.5%), i.e. a very severe selection and a never-ending search for operating niches, while the increased complexity of the international scenario requires higher and higher information and focus on the corporate core business.

There are still many competitive factors in the district, so much so that one can smoothly shift from a linear, segment-based organisation to a non-linear, value-constellation organisation, also by learning from one's customers, with a potential for cultural growth and for overcoming those self-referencing limits, provided one can learn what the new has to offer and is willing to face up to the challenges that will come from the international scenario.

But the stone sector still holds a unique element, and this is the possession of raw materials. White marble from Carrara still remains a powerful factor of local rooting, even in a more and more threatening scenario, of never-ending innovations that are launched on the market. And it is an activity of the sector which is to be definitely promoted and rationalised in compliance with the regulations and expectations of the district and the community (including the economical one), since it is still an essential factor, a cornerstone of the model and structure
of the Tuscan stone district.