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Milan: living and leading a digital transformation

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Save the date! From May 25th to 28th Milano Digital Week will promote more than 600 events to spread the digital culture: at its third edition, the main topic will be a focus on an Open and Sharing Experience.

The initiative is part of a wider program to push the city of Milan towards a digital transformation, both offering an appropriate digital infrastructure and fostering the awareness of the potentiality of digital skills among the citizens.

The involvement of the people is also encouraged through the Open Government project, which invites the citizenship to a new participative culture, for example, allowing consultations on city budgets.

Both companies and people are now able to exploit the opportunities of the OpenData project, that allows whoever is interested to download various datasets, for instance about events, medical information, scholars, air quality, or cars.

Milano Digital Week will also offer the opportunity to meet the ecosystem of startups that is growing across the city. The environment of incubators, places of innovation, and co-working spaces is the fertile ground where young professionals can cultivate their ideas and develop their projects.

Shared workplaces are available all over the city and boost the spread of the agile working culture: whoever wants to can rent a desk or a meeting room, wherever and whenever needed.

Alongside those, the city is also home to many different co-working spaces: regardless of the business, a freelancer can find a community to join, build relationships and share knowledge and equipment.

Why in Milan? Because here you can find business opportunities, a network of mature companies and venture capital, digital and transport infrastructure, and a mindset for hard work that has been the pride of the city for centuries.

A strong communication network supports the digital transformation of Milan in a smart city.
OpenWifi offers free internet access in many different public buildings across the city.

Public transportation reaches every corner of the city and with the app, any user can buy tickets and gather information on the service.

A widespread bike-sharing service, car sharing and scooter sharing integrate the opportunities for mobility.

Moreover, Milan is one of the most attractive destinations for innovators, startuppers and wannabe entrepreneurs. Thanks to its ecosystem of startup incubators and accelerators, Milan represents a great opportunity where you can breathe life into your ideas and enjoy an engaging environment for growing your business. An example for all is the renowned PoliHub – the Innovation District & Startup Incubator of Politecnico di Milano – which in 2018 was able to collect more than 1,200 business ideas.

In addition to the digital opportunities and high quality of courses, we, as students at the MIP School of Business, can also exploit the power of continuous learning through the FLEXA Platform and a wide community of alumni to improve our network and find new opportunities for our growth.

For everyone who is looking for an opportunity to grow: Join Milan, enjoy Milan!

About the author
 Fabrizio Liponi

My name is Fabrizio and I work as a tunnel engineer in the construction of Underground Line 4 of Milan. Born, raised, studied, living and working in Milan: I love my city and I’m proud to take part in building its future. Travel addicted, I love to meet people and different cultures.

Learning in pandemic times

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The spring of 2020 came with some unexpected news: with the arrival of a pandemic emergency, everything needed to be changed.

All businesses, from manufacturing firms, small retail companies and even single professionals, had to review their way of operating in order to adapt to distance working. Normal life became familiarized, with major and minor difficulties, with the policy restrictions imposed by each government. And, of course, education has also been impacted by the necessity to deal with the impossibility of having face-to-face lessons.

The widespread concept of didactics includes three main components. Essential is the ability to transfer knowledge, including theories, principles, models and best practices. The student needs to understand the “know” of a specific subject, through personal study and direct clarifications. But then with the next step comes the “know-how” to apply the knowledge to cases and problems. It needs practice and exercises to build skills, considering hard skills relating to the subject but also soft skills, more and more important in today’s working environments. And once the topic is clear, you are able to apply, socialize with other students and practitioners, trial real cases and review them with professional and personal experiences where they have been already faced. In other words, create your demonstrable and recognized competences.

When switching from an onsite to a remote approach, considerations go beyond only being enabled to participate in lessons from home. It’s necessary to reformulate the way of explaining, teaching and helping the student to learn. It is surely a process that needs time to reorganize and to prepare the required tools. In this context, the i-Flex program makes its entry. By now, I have been following the i-Flex Executive Master in Business Administration at MIP for several months. The inherent concept of the i-Flex program conceived a learning path which would already be online, hence there has been minimal impact following the restrictions and changes imposed by the critical situation. The teaching combines tools, documents and videos which can be followed remotely in your own time, lessons via video conferencing with professors, series of additional webinars to improve learning and review concepts, forums where you can meet other students and professors in order to refine understandings, and so many other things.

Distance learning comes with additional benefits such as a customized path, extracurricular materials and insights, and a personalized schedule. Considering that “out of crisis comes opportunity”, what better occasion to appreciate what distance learning allows you to achieve?

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger ̶ but recognize the opportunity.”

About the author
 Vito Conversano

Student of the International Flex Executive MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano.
Chief Information Officer @ San Marzano Vini SpA with extensive international experience in IT & strategic consultancy for fortune 500 companies. Creative, Curious, Travel lover. Passionate about discovering new concepts, learning continuously and developing new ideas.

The elective courses make the MBA path unique, tailored to your own goals and expectations

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In addition to traditional lessons, the International Part-time MBA program as defined by MIP and the Politecnico di Milano School of Management includes in-company classes, elective courses and the opportunity to attend some courses abroad, thanks to the International Exchange Program.

When I decided to enroll in this MBA, I was working in a big multinational company. I thought that this MBA could help me to develop my soft skills such as team building and managerial leadership, teaching me to be responsible not only for myself, but also for my whole team and, at the same time, to acquire new knowledge and boost my career. So I never had any doubt that the elective courses I would choose would be “Soft Skills” and “Global Management Bootcamp”.
Elective courses are open to students from the International Full-time, Part-time and FLEX MBA courses, and also to Exchange students from partner schools.

I followed the Soft Skills course during the first academic year. In this class we analyzed the personal skills required to succeed and developed a personal plan for reaching our professional goals, guided by professor Filippo Passerini, former CEO of Procter and Gamble, and professor Emre Soyer, behavioral scientist in the Business Faculty at Istanbul’s Ozyegin University.
Both are professionals with great experience and personalities who have achieved ambitious goals and prominent positions in their careers. Their lessons focused on topics such as emotional intelligence, effective communication, problem solving, people and change management.

During the second year I followed the Global Management bootcamp, focused on the business skills relevant for pursuing managerial careers in an international context. This year the course was conditioned by the fact that a few days before the bootcamp week, the Italian health institutions decided to close all schools and universities as a precaution amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
MIP decided to respond to this emergency situation by using the experience, gained over the past years, in providing teaching digitally. Only three days later, the Global Management course professors were ready to provide all the scheduled lessons online.
The course ended with a group presentation about the assessment of a country’s risks and opportunities for international business. On this particular occasion, the “working in virtual teams” course that I followed at the beginning of the first academic year was certainly useful and once again demonstrated the avant-garde level of the master’s program.

During this period not only lessons and teaching activities were carried out as planned but MIP also organized specific lectures, such as those on the prospects for the Italian economy or the Career Workshops in light of the current coronavirus evolution.
There is no doubt that MIP has been able to respond to this emergency situation in the best way, also being an example to other schools and institutions. However, I am very happy to have had the opportunity to personally and actively follow the Soft Skills elective course held by two professors with great charisma such as Passerini and Soyer. Not all sensations and emotions can be transmitted in the same way through digital tools, although highly innovative, and that is why typically courses on this topic are usually provided on campus by the school.

About the author
 Andrea De Donatis

I am Andrea De Donatis, a student of the international part-time MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano. I Graduated in energy engineering and I am currently working in technical sales for a leading multinational electronics company based in Milan.
I am very passionate about technology, IT and digital marketing. I strongly believe that disruptive innovation is vital to create new value.

 

Financial Times Executive Education Rankings 2020

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The School of Management of Politecnico di Milano betters 2019. In Europe, the School is placed 2nd and 3rd among schools linked to technical universities for its Open and Customised programmes

After its 9th place globally for its online master courses, MIP Politecnico di Milano has also climbed the rankings in Executive Education

 

MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business confirms its standing among the world’s best schools for its Open and Customised programmes in the FT Executive Education Rankings 2020. The School of Management is placed 81st in Executive Education – Customised programmes and 74th in Executive Education – Open programmes.

Furthermore, the School of Management is in 2nd and 3rd place in Europe in the Open and Customised categories, respectively, among schools linked to “technical” universities, these being universities that specialise in engineering and technology subjects and are intrinsically geared towards combining innovation and management skills.

In March, the Financial Times Online MBA Ranking 2020 accorded 9th place in its international classification to MIP’s offer of distance learning Masters in Business Administration.

In the Financial Times Executive Education – Open Programmes – Ranking 2020, MIP Politecnico di Milano has risen from 79th to 74th place, improving its scores in almost all parameters, with the highest recorded in Follow-up, Facilities and Female Participants.

Taking only Europe into account, the School of Management is placed 2nd in the group of technical universities with a Business School or Department of Management, and 7th in the group of generalist universities with technical expertise that also have a Business School or Department of Management.

In the Financial Times Executive Education – Customised Programmes – Ranking 2020, MIP is placed in 81st placed compared to last year’s 80th, amidst a greater number of schools under consideration. The scoring was determined by many parameters, above all Follow-up, New Skills & Learning, Future Use, International Clients, Overseas Programmes and Faculty Diversity.

The FT rankings are composed of two distinct parts. The first part relates to “Open” programmes, designed for individual professionals who take decisions independently about the direction and type of education. The second part relates to “Customised“ programmes, which specifically target companies and provide training to their managers and high-potential employees. The parameters that make up the end result are evaluated personally by the participants, CEOs and HR directors of the companies that have experienced the programmes directly.

Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini, Chairman and Dean of MIP Politecnico di Milano: “We have worked extremely hard to continue and improve our offer, including in executive education. In the upcoming weeks, we will present our D-HUB Management Skills platform and Management Toolbox designed for professionals who wish to contribute towards their company’s growth by using our digital programmes. These results reward our great efforts in an increasingly competitive climate that requires continuous investment in the quality of our teaching programmes”.

 

Luxury Management Talks – Webinars

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Discover the fundamentals of Luxury Management and how the Covid-19 pandemic is changing the rules of the games, in an unprecedented series of free webinars hosted by the Programme Directors of the most coveted Masters in Luxury Management.

 

Webinars contents

Thursday, June 18th, 6pm CEST  – Register here
Restarting Luxury retail post-pandemic
Hosted by Eleonora Cattaneo – Head of MA in Luxury Brand Management – Regent’s University London
Guest speaker Michael Ward, Harrods CEO
The webinar will be a talk show between a professor and a prominent British manager in the luxury world.

Monday, June 22nd, 6pm CEST – Register here
Is Lux always on my mind?
Hosted by Roberta Crespi – Director of EMLux – Università Cattolica
The webinar will be focused on the different communication scenarios luxury industry could face in the next future.

Monday, June 29th, 6pm CEST – Register here
The future of luxury brands in the Indian market
Hosted by Smita Jain, Director | MGLuxM SP Jain School of Global Management.

Here is the list of the other forthcoming webinars – follow us for updated calendar

Talents for Luxury
Hosted by Nicoletta Giusti – Director of MSc in Luxury Management – GLION
The webinar will focus on the skills and capabilities needed in the luxury industry to excel in the rapidly evolving and fiercely competitive scenario.

Past events

Monday, May 11th, 6pm CEST 
What is luxury all about? How the pandemic will change the perception of customers.
Hosted by Annalisa Tarquini – Director of MSc in Luxury Management – IUM
Guest speaker Bertrand Petyt
The webinar was focused on how this pandemic is changing the perception of customers on what luxury is all about, and the changes that luxury brand need to implement to still be relevant in tomorrow’s market, with a special focus on luxury services. Watch the video of the event here.

Monday, May 18th, 6pm CEST 
Sustainability in the Personal Luxury Goods industry
Hosted by Alessandro Brun – Director of MGLuxM – MIP Politecnico di Milano
Guests speakers Hakan Karaosman, Expert at United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and Matteo Ward, co-founder of Wrad
The webinar was focused on the renewed wave of sustainability and responsible luxury that we expect in the aftermath of COVID-19. Watch the video of the event here.

Monday, May 25th, 6pm CEST  
The Luxury Industry at the time of COVID-19
Hosted by Alberto Festa – Director of Master in Luxury Management – Luiss Business School 
The webinar was focused on the new challenges for luxury brands at the time of COVID-19: financial impact for retail and supply chains; reengineering the new collection development; new approach to fashion shows.

Wednesday, June 3rd – 6pm CEST 
Luxury consumer experience: What does it mean today?
Hosted by Michel Phan – Director of MSc in Luxury Management – Emlyon Business School
The webinar was focused on the new meaning that Luxury consumer experience has today. Watch the video of the event here.

Monday, June 15th – 5pm CEST
Digital communication strategies during the lockdown
Hosted by Fabrizio Pini – Director of IMLUX – MIP Politecnico di Milano
The webinar was focused analyse the communication strategies of a number of luxury brands, during the current, unprecedented lockdown that boosted the crave for digital contents of consumers worldwide. Watch the video of the event here.

At MIP Corporate Education is digital

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The educational offering for companies moves completely online in the face of restrictions due to Covid-19. A passage facilitated by a teaching method conceived to be versatile, flexible and at the service of companies, as Davide Chiaroni explains

Education doesn’t stop. It continues, but online. This is also true for the Corporate Education offering of MIP Politecnico di Milano which, already largely based on a digital experience, accentuated this characteristic to meet the needs of companies. «The experience we gained in recent years with D Hub, our e-learning platform, not only allows us to continue to make our educational offering available», explains Davide Chiaroni, Associate Dean for Corporate Relations at MIP, «but also to remodel it on the basis of unforeseen needs that emerged during the Covid-19 spread».

Take advantage of time for

There were three lines that MIP decided to pursue in this extremely delicate period. «In the first place, we wanted to show that we were there for our businesses. We did so by broadcasting through our digital channels a free webinar on the impact the coronavirus is having on the economy, addressing urgent issues such as smart working or the supply chain in this moment marked by such a significant disruption», explains Chiaroni. «The second front will be opened shortly: it involves the D-Hub Management Skills platform, available until the end of 2020, which will house the over 950 clips produced by our business school. It’s an initiative aimed at employees, company collaborators, associations and foundations. A real ad hoc library at the service of companies, a tool with which to transform this period of exceptional difficulty into an opportunity to relaunch through the training of one’s human resources». Lastly, a third point: «While on one hand some companies have reduced their business, on the other many companies in specific areas such as the pharmaceutical or financial sector found themselves faced with the task of managing data and projects at a much faster pace. This means that people need to be trained to act in a faster and more efficient manner. For them we are making the effort to further redesign our digital educational offering, because that foreseen for the physical classroom is clearly not practicable at this time».

Understanding and acting: the Corporate offering

However, our course offering isn’t changing. The last two years, in particular, have been characterized by strong demand for courses tied to digital transformation, big data and analytics, but also to the world of marketing and e-commerce: «There are two axes that guide our offering, Understanding and Acting. The part tied to Understanding has the goal of helping companies to understand the changes underway, the challenges they face and their training needs». Acting instead, says Chiaroni, has a more operational approach: «These are more in-depth and longer programmes, with the purpose of transferring skills, knowledge, ways of taking concrete action». These two lines intersect with a transversal axis, that of the target: «In both cases, our courses cover the needs of both of more junior and senior managers».

A platform conceived for the Corporate world

Educational flexibility and versatility are possible thanks especially to a strong digital identity. A path undertaken already in 2014 and which in 2019 took shape with the inauguration of the D Hub platform: «It was created with the corporate universe in mind. We wanted a platform that could be fully used when someone is on the move, which could be accessed with the corporate login, and that would integrate all the necessary educational tools. We offer hundreds of digital capsule courses, recently expanded and created also thanks to the participation of companies. There are videos that include evaluation tests, in addition to metrics that allow us to evaluate the educational effectiveness of the capsule courses themselves, and therefore to fine-tune and improve them. Our goal is to provide an education that is truly digital, and not simply computerized», concludes Chiaroni.

Business Schools Face Unprecedented Challenges Amid Covid

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With travel suspended, schools are moving classes online and enrolling fewer overseas students.

Business schools around the world face unprecedented challenges caused by the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
They are bracing for a long-term economic hit from the risk that fewer international students, who often pay higher fees, will not be able to enroll at their institutions due to travel curbs imposed to stop the spread of the virus.
With campuses closed across the globe, many business schools have moved teaching online.

[…]

Moving online

The coronavirus crisis is quickening uptake of online learning after years of lackluster demand. Many schools have migrated their classes online — a welcome intervention for students displaced due to travel restrictions. […]
MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business in Milan, which has been in lockdown for several weeks, has suspended all in-person teaching. Instead, MIP is using Flexa, an AI learning platform originally designed as a career coach, to circulate study material to students around the world.
“This at first seemed like a hard obstacle to overcome, but instead we now see it to be an opportunity” says Federico Frattini, dean at MIP.
This could be an inflection point in the development of digital delivery that could increase uptake and spark innovation. “Online learning is a flexible and inclusive approach to teaching, with huge potential applications beyond a situation of emergency,” says Frattini.
The question is whether the online platforms and networks can cope with high usage. Some faculty have been resistant to digital delivery.
Early adopters, like MIP, were prepared for the switch to virtual teaching, but there is a difference between a well-designed online course and a Zoom video conference.

[…]

 

Hostmate: how our startup was created at MIP

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The story of this company that operates in the short-term rental market, born in the classroom at MIP. One of its founders, Felipe Aguilera, an MBA alumnus, tells us about it, illustrating opportunities and challenges and offering some advice to those who are about to begin the Master’s programme.

Good ideas, on their own, aren’t enough. They must be studied, closely evaluated, discussed, defended. It’s the best way to bring out their real potential: «In fact, if an idea is born perfect, it means that it’s not innovative», says Felipe Aguilera, alumnus of the Master in Business Administration programme at MIP and among the founders of Hostmate, an innovative startup with headquarters in Milan that operates on the market of short-term rentals. «We manage every aspect of the service, from putting the property online to the cleaning of the apartments, meeting requirements of the compliance side, receiving guests and maintenance».

Cross-cutting skills for a one-of-a-kind service

As often happens, Hostmate was born out of brainstorming: «About three years ago, together with some friends and colleagues, we started discussing the so-called megatrends in the property market. Among these stood out home sharing», says Felipe. «And so we created Hostmate. Currently we operate mainly in Milan, but we are slowly expanding in Turin and Venice. Rome and Florence will be our next big challenges. We want to distinguish ourselves from our competitors and to offer a unique service». There are many variables to manage and they require a wide range of professional skills: «For this reason, two other MIP alumni joined the team: Virginia Soana, currently business manager, and Amr Aladl, operations strategy advisor. Two people with very different academic backgrounds, in law and engineering. But the complexity of the business requires this», explains Felipe. «Our primary objective is to offer a high-level customer experience, which for us is one of the most important parameters. The customer must be satisfied: it’s the best guarantee for the success of our business. But to meet their needs, we must know every facet of the business».

Between bureaucracy and innovation

The operating context is also important. «Italy offers two fundamental advantages for the short-term rental market: widespread home ownership and large tourist volumes. On the other hand, however, we find a strong resistance to change, along with the bureaucratic and administrative aspect: it’s truly challenging to manoeuvre through the various requirements», explains Felipe. Luckily, these limits are compensated «by the great availability of talented and young, and not so young, people, who have a desire to innovate, change the rules, fight the fear of what’s new».

A Master’s that teaches how to do

Characteristics that also marked Felipe’s experience at MIP. «My previous training was in the field of finance, but I felt the need to gain further expertise in logistics, operations, in innovation in general. In particular, I felt the need for a Master’s that led me to “do”, in addition to “learn”. The MBA has fully met my expectations. We had the opportunity to work with professors who shared excellent guidelines for the definition of “agile” business models, operational and organizational, able to survive in uncertain and continuously changing environments, like that in which we live today. In the same way, open communication and the constant sharing of experiences with my colleagues favoured the proliferation and the improvement of ideas which then materialized in concrete projects. Hostmate is one of these». Lastly, some advice for those who are about to embark on this path: «You have to prepare yourself for an intense period of study and work, and don’t forget that a large part of the value of the MBA comes precisely from this dialogue between colleagues, like that between me, Amr and Virginia, and professors. So, speak up and raise your hand».

A response to the challenges of Covid-19

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the hospitality industry, Hostmate and their team have managed to react:  «We decided to take advantage of this particular situation to fast-track some important projects included in the strategic plan, in particular, Hostmate Accommodation Facilities and Hostmate Rentals Centre», says Felipe. «The first project, for example, aims to help the less digitally equipped establishments by adding their property to the main virtual booking platforms, managing it, and helping them to communicate with their guests». With respect to the future of the sector, however, the alumnus makes this comment: «We expect tenants and guests to pay more attention to hygiene and health issues and to increase the use of digital channels for booking, communication and payment of services, but we will be ready to face the new challenges».

UNITIPOSSIAMO – the platform to help shopkeepers

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Five former students from the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, together with others from the same university’s Schools and a number of under-30 volunteers, have established a non-profit startup to help shopkeepers overcome the COVID-19 crisis.

Unitipossiamo or Italian for “together we can”, is a non-profit initiative stemming from the desire of 15 young men and women from all over Italy – mostly unknown to each other – to help shopkeepers overcome the Covid-19 crisis. The project has developed with the voluntary commitment of young professionals and has been rewarded under the Hackforitaly initiative. At present, the platform pools together more than 4,000 business activities across Italy, who either sell purchase vouchers or home deliver their products. In the next few days this number is expected to increase to more than 43,000, generating cash flows of up to €90m for shopkeepers.

Why “together we can”?

Everyone is aware of the need to lend a hand, which is why Italy has seen a multitude of diverse initiatives crop up across the country in an attempt to help trade. But we believe that a fragmented approach is counterproductive. Therefore, we decided to pool together all these initiatives in a single platform, to facilitate those wishing to make a contribution. Aggregator sites simplify searches, meaning that users no longer need to wade through dozens of different sites, and increase visibility for shopkeepers.
The intention behind all these small-to-medium sized initiatives is laudable, but they are unlikely to have a systemic impact if they operate alone. Together, instead, we can.

The problem in figures and its potential impact

The temporary closure of shops could have important repercussions on employment. We are talking about 43,000 closed businesses and, in the darkest possible scenario, of 630,000 jobs at risk.
With an initiative like Unitipossiamo, we believe that, in just a few days, we can reach 43,000 business activities and 4.5 million users who, with an average expenditure of €20 each, could convey over €90m to shopkeepers in difficulty.

What is Hackforitaly?

Taking inspiration from previous initiatives in other European countries, the Italian edition of the event, Hack for Italy, involved an intense weekend (27-29 March) during which several teams worked online to find digital and non-digital solutions to the economic and social challenges arising from the crisis caused by the current epidemic, split by the following categories: Save Lives, Save Communities, Save Businesses.

Almost 1,500 people took up the challenge, putting forward more than 50 projects, developed, starting from simple ideas, during the intense 48-hour marathon. During the first day, teams were formed as the projects were presented, with professionals, experts and entrepreneurs, who had never met before, contributing their diverse backgrounds to the creativity and feasibility of the projects presented.

«Thanks to my EMBA, today I know how to handle the mask emergency»

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PierPaolo Zani, MIP alumnus and general manager at BLS, a company that manufactures protective devices for the respiratory tract, tells us about the impact the coronavirus has had on business on a human and organizational level. Explaining that, with solid foundations and a clear mission, even the hardest stress test can offer an opportunity

Can a moment of great stress, for a company, translate into an opportunity? Yes, if the company has solid organizational foundations and a clear strategic vision of its business. In the space of just a few weeks, BLS, an Italian company that manufactures protective devices for the respiratory tract, more commonly known as “masks”, found itself in this position. «Already at the end of January, before the Covid-19 contagion had extended to Italy and the rest of the world, orders shot up in a way that until that moment would have been unthinkable», says PierPaolo Zani, general manager at Bls and alumnus of the Part Time EMBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano. «Until a few months ago, the demand for masks came from customers who needed to protect from pollutants in industries. This posed a problem for us: what to do, in this moment, to satisfy the demand of our long-time customers, and at the same time help out the civil protection authority and the country?»

The challenge of BLS between today’s emergency and tomorrow’s trends

Not a small dilemma, on which Zani and his team had to reflect deeply before coming to a decision: «We managed to find a balance.  And we did it by going back to our corporate mission: protecting people and doing it well». The jump in orders risked generating a series of organizational difficulties: «I must say, however, that we had already been observing the situation for some time. It’s essential to pay keen attention to all signals that could have an impact on your business, even if they are small signals».

From a strategic point of view, then, it also becomes important to take into consideration the changes that could result from the coronavirus epidemic: «We don’t know how long this emergency will last, at a global level. However, we do know that the use of masks in the West could follow that which is the Asian model, characterized by a greater use of these devices at the consumer level, regardless of the pandemic. Throughout this period, the challenge will be to maintain a straight course, but we will also have the principles of our mission guiding us». And it’s possible to do so, explains Zani, also because the company has made far-sighted choices: «We have worked hard to enter long-term contracts, that ensure our operations, and we can count on back-up suppliers. This situation is an authentic stress test: but our foundations are solid, that’s why we’re holding up».

But for Zani there’s an element that’s even more important, that truly makes the difference: «People. Never so much as now have we been repaid by our ethics, which require us to protect all people in general, as well as those that work with us. In this period, it’s essential to establish a dialogue with production, reinforce hygiene standards, guarantee a secure workplace».

An EMBA to test your dedication

Indeed, Zani has always had a strong interest in the role the human element plays in a company. «This was perhaps the aspect that above all else pushed me to enrol in the Part Time EMBA programme at MIP. I felt the need for improvement. I needed new, more effective and fine-tuned instruments. I wanted to delve into the principles of organizational behaviour. And from all these points of view the master’s was truly helpful». The part-time format of the EMBA also put the commitment and the dedication of Zani to the test. A sort of small, personal stress test: «The advice I give to those who are preparing to begin this master’s is to face it with the maximum commitment. It can be challenging to find a balance between work, private and academic life; but the return, in terms of skills and career opportunities, is very high. It’s truly worth the effort of devoting yourself completely to the programme. I also like to remind people that BLS has a very close relationship with the Politecnico di Milano, with which we are supporting the creation of a startup, a spin-off from the university, and have already worked together with on different workshops. And we always keep a close eye on the talented people we meet in the classroom», concludes Zani.