Virtuous SMEs: stories of growth and innovation

Enhancing the vitality and excellence of Italy’s business fabric, with a focus on the needs and potential of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): this is the goal that led Intesa Sanpaolo to conceive the Winning Enterprises, born in 2019 and now in its fifth edition.

Each year, the most deserving companies, capable of implementing growth projects and contributing to the creation of value for the country and the labor market, are selected, adopting virtuous initiatives in relation to the central theme of each edition. The 2024 edition was dedicated to sustainability, with a special focus on SMEs that have adopted ESG criteria and enhanced territorial production chains. Previous editions have focused on aspects such as tourism and culture, innovation, welfare and digitalization.

The project also gave rise to a series of volumes produced by 24 ORE Cultura, to give substance and stimulate further reflection on issues that are increasingly central and strategic for companies. Five issues that collect contributions and testimonies that emerged during as many editions, highlighting essential elements in the debate on the future of Italian SMEs: enhancement of human capital, internationalization, sustainable growth. Each volume collects the profiles of the SMEs selected and awarded within the project, thus building an important mapping, continuously updated, of the best entrepreneurial realities on the national scene. To date, there are 526 Italian realities that have undertaken paths of growth and enhancement of their respective know-how.