Case stories

How Italian leadership teams learned to read the real story behind their numbers.

These case stories show how founders, CEOs and leadership teams in Italy used the academy to change the way they discuss finances — from spreadsheets nobody opens to conversations everyone can join.

Manufacturing

Mid-sized producer in Northern Italy.

Services

Digital and creative businesses in Rome.

Hospitality

Family-owned hotels and venues.

Team reviewing financial charts and sticky notes
Snapshot
From “finance reports” to shared language

In every case, the academy helped leaders stop debating spreadsheets and start discussing the real options in front of them.

How to read these stories: Each case is simplified and anonymised. Numbers are directional, not marketing claims. Examples are based on work with Italian companies.

Case stories

Three ways leaders changed their financial conversations.

These examples show what changed in meetings, not just in spreadsheets: who speaks, which questions are asked, how quickly decisions are made and how confident leaders feel when numbers are on the table.

01 Manufacturing SME · Northern Italy

The owner who replaced three “mystery reports” with one weekly cockpit.

A manufacturing company with around 80 employees received monthly reports from their accountant, separate production dashboards and ad-hoc spreadsheets from sales. The owner had to piece them together before every big decision.

Challenge

Decisions about stock, pricing and overtime were made under time pressure and with incomplete information.

What changed

Together we built a single weekly “cockpit” combining cash, margin and production signals that fit the owner’s way of thinking.

Result

Weekly review dropped from 2.5 hours to around 45 minutes, with clearer follow-up for production and sales.

  • Simple traffic-light system for product lines highlighted where margin was slipping.
  • Cash forecast linked directly to production schedules, so stock decisions reflected real constraints.
  • Accountant started preparing reports in the same structure as the cockpit, instead of sending separate documents.
Production manager and owner reviewing financial data
Owner’s reflection (paraphrased)

“I still get detailed reports, but now there is one page I can read on Monday morning to see if we are okay or not. The team knows what I will look at, so we come prepared.”

02 Digital agency · Rome

From “we grew revenue” to “we understand which work is profitable”.

A digital agency with 25 people celebrated revenue growth but felt cash was always tight. Project managers saw their work as fully booked, while finance could not clearly connect hours, margins and cash.

What we did together
  • Grouped projects into three “work types” and built one margin view for each instead of following every small project.
  • Aligned time-tracking categories with how finance calculates costs, so both sides spoke the same language.
  • Introduced a simple rule for offers: “if we cannot explain the margin in one sentence, we do not send the proposal yet”.
Meeting rhythm

Monthly leadership meeting gained a fixed 20-minute “financial story” slot using the same views every time.

Team impact

Project managers started to proactively flag low-margin work using the shared definitions.

Result

Within a few months the agency declined several misaligned projects and focused on work that supported their long-term plan.

Creative team in a digital agency discussing charts
Agency CEO’s observation (paraphrased)

“The biggest change was not in the spreadsheet. It was in how project leads started to understand why some ‘cool’ work was actually damaging our cash and our team’s energy.”

03 Hospitality group · Central Italy

A family business made seasonal volatility part of the plan, not a surprise.

A hospitality group with several venues struggled every low season. Cash felt unpredictable, and discussions about staffing and investments often started too late.

Seasonal map

We visualised the year as a sequence of “financial seasons”, combining occupancy, events and cash movements into one timeline everyone could read.

Family meetings

Monthly family meetings gained a clear structure: look back at the last “season”, then decide how to prepare for the next one.

  • Investments were grouped into “must keep the lights on” and “only if season X goes as planned”.
  • Staffing discussions moved from emergency reactions to planned adjustments based on the seasonal map.
  • The external accountant could present updates using the same structure, making it easier for non-finance family members to follow.
Family-owned hotel owners reviewing financial plans
Before vs after
Before

Last-minute reactions to low season, with tension between family members about “unexpected” gaps.

After

Seasonal pattern accepted as normal, with clear rules for when to hire, pause or invest.

How we build case stories

Your company’s story stays yours. We use patterns, not names.

All examples on this page are simplified and anonymised. The underlying patterns are real, but names, sectors and details may be blended so that specific companies are not identifiable.

Confidentiality first

We design case stories so your internal dynamics never appear directly in public examples.

Focus on structure

We highlight the structure of meetings, views and decisions so you can adapt them to your reality.

Orientation, not promises

These stories are there to orient you, not to guarantee any specific financial results.

Let’s explore what your case could look like

You do not need a perfect dataset or polished dashboards before speaking with us. Many case stories begin with the sentence: “Our numbers are all over the place, but we feel something is off.”

  • We listen first, then suggest one or two concrete next steps.
  • We can map your situation to patterns we have seen in other Italian companies.