The health of the Como district in the beginning of this decade appears not very reassuring to many observers as it is showing a structural contraction.

The crisis of this district, which is tied to a much larger crisis in the competitiveness of Italian textiles in particular and of the Made in Italy in general, put the companies of Como into the challenge to regain international competitiveness.

In this context the Observatory of the textile district of Como was born, a project applying the systematic survey and monitoring of the economic and social trend of the textile district of Como. The aim of the project is to become the main reference of knowledge and conveyor of comments on the strategical and competitive evolution of the district.

Description of the project

The Observatory has two aims: On the one hand it wants to build a complete and constantly updated information system on the economic and social system of the Como district, available for the companies of the area; on the other hand it gives the opportunity to discuss and analyse the prospects, needs and potentials shown by the textile district of Como.

All this in order to continuously offer information about the situation and the strategical and competitive evolution of the district and of other national and international situations, necessary for the elaboration of strategies, action plans and intervention policies by local companies and institutions.

From the beginning the Observatory has been directed by Prof. Fernando Alberti of Università Cattaneo - LIUC in strict cooperation with a selected team of representatives of Institutions and Entrepreneurs of the textile district of Como.

The project lasted three years.

On the operating side, the first step of the project started on December 1st 2004 and culminated in the first semester of 2006 with the organization of a Forum showing the first research report of the Observatory. The research studied strictly economic aspects such as international competitiveness of the district and its entrepreneurial structure and also sociological and cultural elements with the analysis of the internal relationship of the district as well as the system of convictions of the main representatives of entrepreneurs and institutions.

The second step of the project developed in the following two years in order to continue and organize the activity of the Observatory as well as to concretely operate by intervening, monitoring and making evaluations inside the district.

Since 2008 Prometeia Spa in Bologna has been appointed to support Centro Tessile Serico Spa to further develop the project of the Observatory.

In particular Prometeia supports Centro Tessile Serico in creating information services for the monitoring of structure, actions and performances of the textile and silk companies in Como.

The aim is to allow a constant monitoring of the real and economic and financial performances of the district.

The last publishing of the results obtained by the activity of Prometeia took place on 11/06/2009, 26/11/09 and 03/06/10 at Centro Tessile Serico.