Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128128
Carlo di 8iagio company, revealed one surprising fact not many Ducatisti have taken on board. For Ducati's main man is also a biking beancounter, who just as I was locking the door of Scuderia Hertz's Fiat rentaracer, scooted into the Ducati car park at quite some pace aboard his charcoal ST4s, after downshifting through the gears as he slowed for the factory gate with an aplomb Carl Fogarty would have been proud of. He then cranked it onto the stand with a practiced knack and, after we'd walked upstairs to his office together, excused himself so he could change out of his evidently well-used riding gear before we settled down to talk at some length, on the record. Class. So, Carlo - you're a biking beancounterl Is that just a recent transformation? I've always been a motorcyclist - if you live in Rome, it's crazy not to be one, to beat the traffic! So, for me, the chance to join Ducati and help transform a company whose products have been close to my heart for so long was a great opportunity. This is why, in my terms of employment letter, I made sure I was entitled to a· company bike, not a company car. I ride everywhere, all year round. Ducati is almost unrecognizable in business terms today from the struggling company it was five years ago. Can you quantify that for us? I think we have reason to be proud of what we've achieved. Our turnover went up from Euro 100 million [$90 million] in 1996 to just over Euro 380 million [$345 million) last year - almost a fourfold increase. In terms of production, back in 1996 Ducati sold just over 12,500 units, whereas in 2000 we actually registered 38,000 bikes, more than three times as many as five years ago, and are projecting 40,000 registrations for this year. Our personnel back in 1996 was quite demoralized, because the company was practically bankrupt many key people had already left, and the overall workforce was shrinking, too, down to around 400 in total at the time of the takeover. Now we have just over 1000 people on our payroll - 920 here in Italy, the rest overseas in our wholly-owned distribution network which has been an important part of restoring Ducati's position in the market. Of the Italian-based workforce, we have around 550 production-line workers, with another 200 or so engineers and support staff in R&D as well as our Ducati Corse race division, and the rest are involved in administration. But, from just walking around the factory on my periodic visits here, I feel a quite different A By ALAN CATHCART PHOTOS BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA here's no point in pretending otherwise. The appointment of Carlo Di Biagio in July 2000 to the top job at Ducati, succeeding company doctor Federico Minoli, the man who spearheaded Ducati's latter-day revival under American ownership, as CEO/Managing Director of Ducati Motor was a surprise for many Ducatisti all over the world - as well as, for some, a disappointment. Not because of who the new man was, but rather who he wasn't - for in the wake of Minoli's withdrawal from day-to-day responsibility, expectations were high that his job might have gone instead to Dr. Desmoquattro himself, Massimo Bordi - the engineer with overall responsibility for the current breed of V-twin motorcycles, and for Ducati's raft of World Superbike titles. Bordi, after all, in his corporate role as general manager had helped Minoli turn the company around in the wake of the TPG takeover, and it was Bordi's technical creativity, coupled with the confidence the workforce had in him as one of them, that had played a key role in keeping Ducati alive during its dark days over half a decade ago. Bordi obviously had his sights set on the top job, too - resigning from Ducati a couple of 20 OCTOBER 31,2001 • cue I _ n months after being passed over in favor of Di Biagio's appointment, to take up a new career as CEO of Italy's largest tractor manufacturer, S.A.M.E., a firm ironically somewhat larger than Ducati in terms of turnover and profitability. Not a bad consolation prize - even if as yet there's no World Championship for tractor tugging, nor any desmo-powered combine harvester. But the fact remained that the Ducati board had instead given the job of heading up the resurgent motorcycle manufacturer to Carlo Di Biagio - the company's 49-year-old financial boss brought in by Minoli five years ago to take control of the firm's precarious finances in the post-Cagiva era - after a 17year career with American conglomerate Proctor & Gamble, followed by a six-year spell as CEO of salami specialist Cesare Ferrucci, based in his home city of Rome. Di Biagio has been a key player in the remarkable five-year success story that is the Ducati turnaround operation; with turnover/revenues spiraling to $352 million in 2000, itself a 28.7 -percent increase over 1999. Most important of all, the bottom -line profitability also rose by 17.5 percent in the same period, to $9.8 million, making di Biagio the man of the moment who, right at the outset of his first full interview since taking over the reins of the __ s Q A Q