According to Danieli Group’s Chairman Gianpietro Benedetti, working hard and having innovative ideas are the most effective ways to respond to the challenges of the modern era. The same goes for the ability to turn negative situations into opportunities. He spoke about this topic on April 20 during the conference “The internationalization strategies of companies” at the headquarters of “Il Messaggero Veneto” in Udine, Italy. The event was organized to present “Top 100”, a research project on the area’s excellent businesses conducted by Nordest Economia, PwC, and Fondazione Nord Est. Approximately 200 guests, including entrepreneurs, managers, and institutional representatives, attended the conference.

Interview by journalist Roberta Paolini, Gianpietro Benedetti shared the experience of Danieli Group, stating that “in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the company aimed to acquire small, highly technological companies with a good reputation”, which led to “excellent results”. As a consequence, the company pursued direct investments and “began building companies around the world, such as in China and the USA. Some skills were acquired, while others were built, and the company invested in innovation, taking on the risk”. Thanks to its forward-looking vision, Danieli Group has developed technologies 15 years ago that are now in high demand worldwide. As emphasized by Chairman Gianpietro Benedetti, these technologies allow for “the reduction of steel production costs and CO2 emissions”, which aligns with Europe’s decarbonization targets for 2030.

“We have unintentionally become pioneers in green steel production technologies, and as a result, we have achieved an order backlog of 5.5 billion in the last year”, he added, while also stressing that the Group has “important orders in the USA, Europe, and China, and for the first time, it has received orders from India as well”. According to Gianpietro Benedetti, the global market will transform into regional macro-markets in the future: “I don’t know if there will be two or three blocks, but that is the direction”, he stated, emphasizing that “supply chains must be redesigned and scaled”. The Chairman also stressed the need to develop a strategy to equip Italian manufacturing with new professional skills, proposing to ease the residence permit procedures for highly specialized individuals.