Autori: Antonio Majocchi, Luciano Fratocchi, Manuela Presutti
Abstract:Coccato e Mezzetti S.r.l. (hereinafter C&M) – is a medium-sized enterprise in the funerary and sanitary business with around 60 employees located in Galliate, in the province of Novara in the North of Italy. The company was established on 25 October 1983 by Pasquale Coccato and Carlo Mezzetti, who equally share the ownership of the company. The current company is an evolution of C&M Snc, founded by the same partners in 1978. After an initial transfer of a 10% of shares to the Coccato family, in 2001, upon the death of the co-founder Carlo Mezzetti (2006) his heirs decided to sell the remaining 40% of the share capital to the Coccato family. The deal took place in December 2008. Today the company is a typical family firm with owners and top managers coming from the Coccato family. C&M Snc’s original goal was to carry out production and commercial activities in the funeral products sector. Over the years, the founders have created an entrepreneurial journey characterised by both diversification strategies and downstream integration, which led C&M, among other things, to produce textile products for the health sector and provide funeral services. The story of Coccato is a story of managerial agility where the company shows not only a capacity of adaptation to the evolving competitive contexts, but also a constant and steady ability to find and exploit new business opportunities by both leveraging internal resources and cooperating with external partners. Thanks to its ability, which it has developed over the years, to adapt to very different circumstances and to continuously look for new business opportunities, the company was able to successfully navigate through the Covid crisis that heavily impacted the area where the company is located. During the worst days of the pandemic, the company – in a very difficult context – was able to increase production and to start offering products for which there was a very high demand in Italy.
