EuroExecution was incorporated in spring 2014 at Lugano, Switzerland, moving from the vision of its managing partner Euro TRAPANI to make available to industrial medium-size groups with strong international footprint, a background of operating experiences, developed directly on the field. Trapani worked over 32 years, of which 18 as Group CFO in Italian “pocket size” multinationals (shortly PSM), listed and private, with the common characteristic to have relevant international footprints, not only with sales branches, but also with plants and R&D centers throughout the world. In these competitive scenarios, PSM with turnover of hundreds of millions of euro may really gain significant benefits from EuroExecution expertise, very effective in the management of complexity and of the risk profiles of the PSM, not only from financial standpoint, but also and mainly from operating and cultural point of view.
EuroExecution is not a traditional consulting firm, but a group of project management, able to help its own customers in the definition of international strategies and of the related implementation plans, as well as in their execution, assuming the leadership in the related projects. The execution is performed together with the PSM management, focusing on the failures and the remediation to be implemented mainly in finance, administration, governance and control areas.
The value proposition of EuroExecution is totally different from what may be offered by the big consulting firms, that, even using large international networks located in all the main cities of the world, generally are not able to play in coordinated way and they are closer to a sum of ”local” experts, without a comprehensive global view. Instead, in EuroExecution, the experiences were developed directly working in many different international situations at corporate level and therefore with an approach really glocal.
EuroExecution offers its expertise to the PSM shareholders and management when they are focused on the achievement of the growth and on internationalization strategies as well as when the PSM is in a cycle in which it becomes mandatory to strength and to optimize the business structures and controls, in front of growth rates declining and/or bigger complexities and risks to face.
For instance, in case of international M&A projects, there are plenty of banks, transactional advisors, law firms, etc., able to support with high level of quality in all the phases till to the deal closing. However, after the closing, the buyer “has the keys” of the target in its hands but often it has difficulties to define the corporate governance in the target, the integration and synergies implementation, the control and reporting processes. In these situations EuroExecution may offer its best services, because, having faced similar challenges in the past, it is really aware that this phase is really crucial for the success of the acquisition. Moreover EuroExecution may offer itself, only on temporary basis, to manage the target acquired. In this way the buyer has the proper time to better organize its own managerial structures for the integration of the acquisition, assessing at the same time the quality of the operating systems of the target, as well as the ethics of the “acquired” management.
Having taken part at M&A processes both sides, investments as well divestments, of course EuroExecution is able to support the customers since the beginning of the process if they wish, helping in the selection of banks, tax and legal consultants, transaction and auditing firms, with the advantage to have seen them working in different geographies… Quite often, in fact, the firm brand is not so important, while is much more relevant the quality of the team that they are going to devote to a specific project.
The experiences got in these years confirm that sooner or later all the PSMs become aware about the need to strengthen the structures and/ or about their weaknesses, also for cultural reasons. Due to the limited size, they seem often almost shy from one side in organizing the necessary adjustments to face much higher risks level and from the other in organizing control systems more powerful in the activities of the foreign subsidiaries.
The adoption of a too lean managerial approach, driven only by informal and personal relations, that seems normal when the company works in a business environment well known by the entrepreneur, quite often gets very poor performances in the foreign subsidiaries, mainly when they do business in not transparent countries and or at high level of ethical risks. This management style implies generally either too much centralized corporate governance, not capable to catch the opportunities and the characteristics of the markets, or at the contrary, weak governances, very risky, because frequently they are joined with serious lacks of control systems.
In these contexts, EuroExecution is able to support the top management through the assessment of the quality of the governance as well of the control systems, linking them to the real profile of the business risk of the PSM. Usually EuroExecution asks to play having direct interactions also with the main foreign subsidiaries, in order to understand properly their perspectives and business and then to design and create a correct relationship, between corporate and the subsidiaries.