About the author

Dr Flavio Marzani · FM Studio Consulenza, Chiari (Brescia)

The articles on this blog come from the Firm's day-to-day work in small and medium-sized enterprises: controlling, management and reorganisation. They are not theoretical exercises; they are the criteria we actually use when we walk into a company.

Where I come from

I started as an auditor at Ernst & Young, where you learn to read a set of accounts for what it says and, above all, for what it does not say. Then I moved to the other side of the table: manager and managing director in international companies, in steel, automotive, distribution and renewable energy.

It is a difference that matters. Analysing a company's figures is one thing; having to answer for them is another: signing a quotation, deciding whether to make or buy, going to the bank to ask for a credit line, telling a department that the method is changing.

What I do today

With FM Studio Consulenza I work alongside SME owners on three fronts: controlling (business plan, budget, rolling forecast, cost analysis, cost accounting), temporary and fractional management (generational handovers, review of procedures and organisation charts, KPIs) and business development, including in foreign markets.

The tool I work with is the Predictive Analysis Simulator: it applies algorithms to historical accounting series and projects the next twelve months, so that decisions are taken in advance rather than after the fact.

How I think

• Turnover is not profitability. Growing in volume without margin is dangerous.
• Cash before profit. You close the year in profit and have no money: it is a timing problem.
• There is no point earning more if you don't first know where you are losing.
• Monthly reading. Anyone who looks at the figures once a year is driving by looking in the rear-view mirror.
• Without data you don't manage: you hope.

Where to find me

The Firm is in Chiari, in the province of Brescia, and works across Brescia, Bergamo and Milan. Contact details are on the contact page; the Firm's website, with its services and case histories, is www.fmstudioconsulenza.it.

Direction. Organisation. Results. Everything else is theory.