BB S.p.A., or Being a Different Kind of Entrepreneur (by Veronica Rogi- Rogi-alli)

BB S.p.A., from its headquarters in Calenzano, works for the most prestigious international fashion and luxury brands, successfully combining highly creative and technological skills. In the company, therefore, a craftsmanship approach coexists with an approach based on the use of the best technologies and skills for precision mechanical processing. BB produces various types of products, such as bags, jewellery, bracelets, watches, etc., with a high standard of quality and with the characteristics of originality required in the luxury sector.

But these are not the only salient features of BB S.p.A., which was founded in 2000 with the first two workers, one of whom had a medical condition, and now has over 200 employees and a turnover of around 50 million euros in 2019.

In addition to the great achievements at the big fashion companies, perhaps the most significant factor is the fact that these results have always been obtained by putting people at the centre, some of whom are fragile and have various difficul-ties, and whose integration into the world of work is usually very difficult. These people are not only regularly welcomed and included in BB, but they are also given the opportunity to make an effective and original contribution, thus break-ing down the traditional welfare logic, i.e., the one that requires companies to employ a certain number of people belonging to protected categories according to pre-established criteria. This is largely the result of the will of its founder, Marco Bartoletti, who has always followed this self-imposed business model, finding in it a source of personal satisfaction.

BB therefore offers a valuable service to the community, welcoming anyone who wants to get involved, without distinction on the basis of gender, age, level of education or state of health. Approximately 30% of the people who work at BB have more or less serious health problems or discomforts of various kinds, but whoever comes to BB will have no reason to be excluded a priori, whatever their situation is.

This is possible because, in addition to being a place of paid work, the BB is conceived as a community of people whose aim is the common good of society and its members.

As a result of this community dimension, people work and help each other. Mu-tual help with manual tasks and the understandable difficulties associated with the precarious state of health of many people is not perceived by employees as a brake on individual productivity, nor as an impediment to carrying out their work tasks, but rather as the natural response of a working community, which values the natural contribution of each individual for the collective good of the com-pany.

The company’s policy of putting people and their value at the centre, also with regard to the issue of competitiveness, considerably reduces certain business risks. In fact, the luxury accessories produced by BB have a great economic value due to their uniqueness, preciousness and sophistication of design. Any disclo-sure of such confidential items would result in an asset risk of the highest order, as BB supplies many of the world’s most important fashion brands. Thanks to the relationship of extreme and mutual trust between people, it has been possible to prevent this risk during many years of activity, in which such events have never occurred.

This is how, through the will of each and every one, a strong mutual commitment to the protection of work through the care of each other was born. Everyone fully understands the real value of work, which is not an impersonal good, but has a face and a name: that of those who are close to him, especially if he lives a condition of particular difficulty.

Every accessory produced at BB also becomes an expression of Tuscan crafts-manship and acquires great value in the eyes of customers who come from all over the world, recognising its originality and maximum attention to detail. The initial phases of designing and making the prototype take place with the collab-oration of all those involved according to their skills (almost always acquired in the company itself), usually mechanics, designers and draftsmen. The fashion house designer very often commissions a luxury accessory from BB, providing only design and style indications, but no precise technical and functional details.

The creative and artisanal, but at the same time ‘functional’ and technological spirit, of all the company’s collaborators then makes the stylists’ vision concrete and feasible. The BB team then starts working to think and design the object, which in a few days is made and delivered to the customer, a prototype of an article that will then be later industrialized and produced, again by BB, on a large scale. BB’s added value lies in its ability to interpret the most diverse customer requirements, assisting them right from the product design phase with creativity and aesthetic taste, without ever sacrificing the functionality and efficiency of the accessory.

President Bartoletti decided from the very start to become an entrepreneur with-out ever leaving his homeland, making use of the social, intellectual and techno-logical capital that the territory offered him and enriching it in turn.

With regard to the company’s prospects and future managerial strategies, he of-ten states that the entrepreneur’s job also contains a great responsibility that cannot be es-caped: the entrepreneur ‘borrows’ about 1/3 of an individual’s life (8 hours of work out of 24) to carry out the company’s activities and also make a profit. Having such an important value available and received, the entrepreneur must feel responsible for the destination, the fruit of so much work effort. The result of this reflection traces the difference between an effectively socially sustainable enterprise and one that is not.

But how do you reconcile the turnover of a luxury company churning out elite products with the fact that the company is made up of a good percentage of people with difficulties?

“In the selection of people, we are constantly looking for ‘perfection’, convinced that this characteristic is essential to have an equally ‘perfect’ company, and then we discover, and we can’t explain why, so many ‘perfect’ people develop com-panies that are not on a human scale: even though they may generate profits, they have no function, they don’t make sense for people”, says Bartoletti. “Per-haps the best thing, therefore, given the results we have achieved, can be found in what we have considered a kind of ‘waste’, and that is by making the most of and uniting within the company the contribution that individuals can offer, re-gardless of their state of health and their difficulties”.

In this sense, BB demonstrates that integration does not mean being an ONLUS, nor is it synonymous with suffering budgets, but rather brilliance, style and know-how: “Achieving ambitious company objectives”, Bartoletti recalls,

“means going forward while also looking back, avoiding forgetting about anyone.

For me, the idea that a high-performance company has to ‘run’ fast at any cost is an inhuman concept and, in the end, anything but high-performance”.

So, if it is only one person who works at BB, rather than a ‘sick person’, it is a person rather than an entrepreneur who leads the company. As Bartoletti reiter-ates, “people make the difference: no technological evolution can ever replace the passion and expertise of those who love their work”, the company must be conceived as a living element that is shaped by the needs and characteristics of those who live it day by day: it is precisely in this sense that the person is at the centre of the company.

The Italian company can be the forerunner of another idea of company, where profit is combined with the social aspect without pity, continuing to do business with great satisfaction in terms of turnover: “Not only is it possible to do busi-ness being ethical, but it is our moral duty and it pays off. Either we decide to improve our working system – which currently excludes people when they should be included – or we risk destroying the foundations of an entire society”.

This is why there is only one certainty in BB’s future, which goes beyond the possible competitive advantages on which the company’s future success will be based: the certainty of putting people at the centre, without ever excluding anyone.

2.7. Potential and Development Perspectives of the Disability Manager