«We are making CHINA WHOLESALE CENTER a benchmark for Northern Italy»

Berica Marchiorello, president of Finleb Srl: «Cleaning and security are our keywords»

In recent years Berica Marchiorello has had to struggle against prejudice. She is now ready to point out how Finleb srl, the company that manages the CHINA WHOLESALE CENTER, has long been working hard to make the facility in Corso Stati Uniti, Padua, a benchmark «for any other similar center in this country, both from an organizational point of view and for the control». Finleb has chosen to be represented by Confapi Padua in the awareness that integration is the development model to be followed and an opportunity for Chinese businessmen in Padua.

Mrs. Marchiorello, let's start from the beginning: how does the CIC begin?
«The Finleb complex has arisen in the area that previously hosted the production site of the glorious OMS, Officine Meccaniche Stanga, a company founded in 1920 that operated in the construction of railway vehicles. After the crisis in the iron-tram industry we have worked to redevelop the area, building the first facilities on the street in 2006, and the others in 2009, covering an area of about 70,000 square meters».

Today, how many entrepreneurs are there in your facility?
«About a hundred in wholesale, but we must add a company that operates in the industry, making air conditioning systems for vehicles, a company that manufactures medical equipment, a laboratory for processing prescription lenses , several design and service companies making industrial equipment in telecommunications and security, five professional and administrative studies and two restaurants with 400 seats covered».

In these years your aim was acting in the name of transparency and cleanliness.
«A premise: Finleb always sought full cooperation with the city, in order to manage the complex in the best way. As for us I mention some important steps to improve the CIC: we have introduced a private security guard for the control of goods and hallways, we worked for the total clearing out of the corridors, the creation of specific signs to identify each box by company name, the selection and adaptation to standards of escape routes and the tidy and functional reorganization of spaces of individual boxes: thinking of an "opaque" management where you do not know who occupies the center is totally out of place».

Another thorny chapter: security.
«From this point of view it is important that you know how we intervened in these years: too often we talk about the CIC without really knowing it. Here is the list of some of the improvements we made: there is an active video surveillance system consisting of 40 cameras and the complex is monitored even during the closing night through video-patrols managed by an external security agency, which also provides against tampering and burglary. We also defined a special enclosed area, video-monitored and controlled, for the garbage collection: regulations have been established for the storage and recovery».

So far you spoke of "external" interventions but then the management of individual boxes is up to individual operators.
«To raise employee awareness of the CIC, Finleb organized safety training with adhesion by more than 90% of the operators and in addition promotes meetings with audio-visual (translated and illustrated lecture notes, Power Point presentations) precisely in order to understand how they should behave properly. It also delivered and exhibited a "Management Decalogue", signed for acceptance by each tenant, that highlights the behavior to follow in the management of the business. We have made considerable efforts in the name of cleanliness and transparency, investing significant resources. What I do want you to understand is that we are talking about a structure that has revitalized an area that would otherwise have been left to itself. Today, the CIC is a resource for the entire city and has the potential to act as a focal point for the whole of North Italy».