Summer issue 2012
I asked this question a few people, in several different environments. The majority of responses were like this:”Do you think it’s appropriate to even talk about this, at this time?”.
On the other hand, a large part of the answers were rather similar to the last issue’s editorial I was trying to support. I asserted that “luxury” means excellence, and, in our case, this comes from Italians’ genius and creativity, in other words from all that produces quality. Therefore, “luxury” is intended not in the sense of ostentation, but rather as innovation, research and work by the rule book. In conclusion, we mean everything that recompenses the Made in Italy activities of many companies, the few that are successful directing their production abroad, as the domestic demand drastically decreased, in these difficult times.
Globalization is energetically showing its effects: an intensified exchange of resources, both human and material, due to obstacles dismantling and barriers removal, typical of the New Economy. The result is the revolution of the concept of competition, and, above all, an incredible powerful upheaval in the technology field.
There are much more possibilities to operate simultaneously in multiple markets, as demonstrated by the action of several small and medium enterprises now operating in Eastern European countries, in the Mediterranean area and in the Middle and Far East, in addition to the established North American and European markets.
However financial speculation shows the other side of the coin: the stock exchange oscillation and the unreliability of markets, often due to a nonexistent sense of ethics together with a behavior based on internal opportunism, is affecting balances and developments.
People had been talking about a financial uproar for some time, until the earth has not moved not only in a metaphorical sense, but real, and struck an Italian region that, more than others, is the proof of that quality, excellence and innovation which we are talking about. Though, along with the sorrow in witnessing the mourning for the victims and see those little villages torn apart by the continued earth tremors, most of all has impressed the spirit in which the population of Emilia Romagna has reacted. A great example for everyone.