Digital Transformation: Vittorio Massone and his role of Advisor

Current Vice President at Alkemy (Italian digital agency), Vittorio Massone has a strong professional experience, that led him to manage important turnaround operations for some of the most renowned companies, both Italian and international. He is now a professional in the field of the Digital Transformation, with the role of Advisor.

Vittorio Massone is an accomplished Digital Transformation Advisor and Investor. As a manager, he believes teams can be enriched by diversity and complexity. In terms of skills, he stands out for functional operations such as organization, merger and acquisitions, strategy, as well as procurement, customer experience and operational improvement.

Vittorio Massone's career: the early days

Vittorio Massone's career started after he graduated with full marks in Economics at the Sapienza University (Rome), in 1989. In that same year, indeed, he started working as Business Analyst for Klopman Textile Industry (Burlington Group), where he remained until 1991. He then felt the need to upgrade his education and, indeed, in 1992 he gained a Master in Business Administration at the Bocconi University (Milan). The following year he started a new professional adventure, that saw Vittorio Massone in the role of Associate at Value Partners, a renowned strategy consulting firm operating in Milan. In 1994, a raise in his professional path was awaiting: he joined Bain & Co. This well-known management consulting company gave him the chance to hold roles of always increasing responsibility: in 1995 he started working as Manager, role that he held for four years. In 1999, in fact, he was promoted as this company's Partner becoming, five years later, its Director (2004). These professional experiences revealed themselves to be crucial in Vittorio Massone's working life: thanks to this path, he gained an overall recognition as a prominent professional in the global advisory business. The fields he specifically stands out in are digital, telecommunications, industrial services, government, media/entertainment, and automotive. His precious abilities, such as the capacity to be deeply trusted by CEOs and Boards, alongside his skills to manage articulate programs, gave him the chance to be working with top-level and international clients. Among them Walt Disney, Poste Italiane, Sviluppo Italia (currently Invitalia), Pagine Gialle, Rai, Gruppo Espresso, Consip, Il Sole 24 Ore and Coni.

Vittorio Massone's professional conquers

Many have been the occasions where Vittorio Massone could give proof of his professional abilities. Among all the complicated operations he managed, worthy of mention are some important turnarounds that took place between 1997 and 2008. Seat Pagine Gialle's operation (1999 - 2001) allowed its investors to gain a return on investment of circa 20 times; in 1999, he managed the acquisition of Virgilio/Matrix, as well as the turnaround of Poste Italiane. Here, he succeeded in saving the group from a loss of 200M Euros leading it to realizing an EBITDA of more or less 2Bn. Most importantly, this result was achieved without any redundancies. 2010 was a year when his career went a step even further: he got nominated Managing Partner of Bain & Company Africa. Here he had the responsibility to build a completely new reality from scratch. He decided to build a well-structured team based on diversity. This means giving every single talent the chance to flourish, so to enrich the company itself. Vittorio Massone considers, indeed, this as a founding value in order to create a long lasting business. His productive experience in South Africa allowed the company to open a new office in Nigeria. After this experience, at the end of 2018, Vittorio Massone returned to Italy willing to focus his profession on the digital market, working as Digital Transformation Advisor and Investor. Currently he his Vice President in the digital company Alkemy, based in Milan.

Digital revolution will change company boundaries: Vittorio Massone’s point of view

According to Vittorio Massone, to think that the digital revolution has already reached its peak is a mistake: indeed, the expert in management believes that the effects of the digital revolution have not yet had their full impact on the social and economic system.

Vittorio Massone on digitization: "Slower sectors can have a profound impact"

Agriculture, industry and logistics are those sectors that only in recent years have started to be affected by the digital revolution. The most evident changes of the transformation, indeed, have occurred in the consumer area and in the world of entertainment so far. In his editorial published in Lettera43, the expert in digital transformation Vittorio Massone explained that the revolution will have its full impact only in the next twenty years. The transformation is already starting to affect the areas of supply chain, operations, business to business and business to government, as "these sectors are slower in changing", said Vittorio Massone , "but they can have a profound impact across the economic field". The changes would lead to an ICT-driven society, as well as to a radical transformation of business models: in order to prepare themselves, companies have to take into account new competitors, as those represented by the generation of "digital natives". There will be relevant changes in corporate roles too, as rigid organizational models will be challenged by the revolution: as the manager wrote, attention will be focused on professional figures who are in direct contact with the customer, as well as on those who are related to technology, and, in addition, a greater inclusion will involve stakeholders.

Innovation, Vittorio Massone explains why Italy is likely to be at a standstill

Within such an economic context, where most small and medium-sized enterprises are still reluctant to digital innovations, Italy runs the risk of losing even more ground in the competitive race. According to Vittorio Massone, a manager with a deep experience in successful turnaround operations, and who worked with top clients the likes of Poste Italiane and Seat Pagine Gialle, very few Italian companies in the unregulated sectors have today the scale necessary to play "a leading role in the next twenty years". These leading roles are likely to be lacking both for new market areas and in the capital market, and, in addition, strategic factors such as patents, data and key skills will be fundamental in the coming years. Considering also investments in R&D, as well as the so-called critical mass, it is easy to predict the future difficulties that Italy could have. Finally, the expert wrote that, in order to remain competitive, it will be essential to focus on product innovation, to improve the customer experience, and, furthermore, to reduce cost-to-serve. The editorial published in Lettera43 was written by Vittorio Massone, an expert in digital transformation, with over 25 years of experience in strategic consultancy. During his career he was involved in particularly complex operations in the functional areas of strategy, organization, merger and acquisitions, customer experience, operational improvement, procurement. With an innovative managerial vision based on team "diversity", he is currently dedicated to supporting the digital transformation processes of important traditional companies, as well as to facilitating the growth of the "digital native" ones. Since February 2020 he has been Vice President of the Board of Directors of Alkemy.