Lorenzo Bosica is the second generation of a family whose story is rooted in fire protection. What began as a small workshop in the 1970s grew into two well-established companies in central and southern Italy: Bosica and Universo. It is a story of responsibility, courage and vision, told in his own words.
Jordan Mozzanica: Lorenzo, let’s start with a simple, straightforward question. How did you get started? Where did you begin and why?
Lorenzo Bosica: Mine is probably a story a lot of people can relate to. Maybe not so much today, but back in the 1970s it was quite normal to live above the shop. We lived on the same premises as the business, a small workshop. In those days fire protection meant extinguishers and nothing else, the “little red cylinders,” as people used to call them. That was fire protection. Our family started from absolutely nothing. My father built the business from scratch in a sector where everyone was more or less making it up as they went along. It was purely a sales operation where you went out on the road and sold. From those small beginnings, the company grew fairly quickly through the 1970s and into the 1980s.
But you were raised on fire protection, since you were at your father’s side from early childhood. And you started working with him when you were very young.
Absolutely. We grew up surrounded by fire extinguishers and played on the red cylinders. We didn’t play with balls or tricycles: we played in the workshop. The company didn’t manufacture anything. It was purely a service company, and back then servicing was simpler than it is today. So we kids pretty much played with that equipment. We grew up on the technical side of the business, not the admin side.
As a business owner and a parent, how do you feel about having your children start at the bottom?
It’s a complicated question, because there are lots of different schools of thought. Some people say you should just study and learn it all from books first. I’m still convinced that you absolutely have to start at the bottom, both for technical reasons and, above all, for cultural ones. You shouldn’t start at the top and work your way down, the way a lot of businesses do it. You have to start from the foundations to understand every kind of operation, whether it’s sales, management or technical.
You’ve said you didn’t stay in school and that you started working full-time at 14. Tell me about that time.
Back then you could be legally employed at 14. Since I hadn’t stayed in school, I joined the business as a fully fledged member of the team. My father had the courage to put me on a Piaggio Ape three-wheeler as an ordinary traveling salesman, with exactly the same responsibilities. At 14 I was still a kid. I didn’t even look like an adult. But it was perhaps the greatest opportunity I’ve ever had, because it’s rare for a company to bring you in that way at that age.
But why didn’t you look for a different path? Didn’t you ever tell your father, “I’d like to do something else”?
No, it was genuinely what I wanted. Nothing was forced on me. Quite the opposite: it had been my dream since I was little. I was given the chance to do it and I took it. Then circumstances put me on the front line out of necessity, because sadly I wasn’t even 17 when our father died. But as they say, you make a virtue of necessity. It’s not that I had to roll up my sleeves because of what happened. I was already in it, and it was already my dream. It was a natural progression.
How did the family handle that period?
My mother was very young. She carried on running the business with me, and over the years my sister joined us too. The whole family pulled together, each of us bringing our own background and strengths.
Tell me about three important steps in your growth as an entrepreneur.
The first was getting to know our most important suppliers and clients. Fortunately, my father had had time to teach me how to manage all of that.
The second, bigger step was moving to new premises. The company was growing and fire protection was evolving. It was no longer just the little cylinders. Fire compartmentation had arrived, along with fire-rated doors and windows and fire protection systems. We had also started supplying other companies in the industry. The old premises were no longer suitable, so we took a huge leap: land, construction, everything. In hindsight, it was perhaps too big a leap for the times and for what we could handle. But we didn’t lack courage, and the whole family got involved, taking on significant financial commitments too.
The third step was managing our people. We had some very serious problems, and the way we responded to a series of circumstances pushed the company to evolve very quickly. That was the starting point for the entire fire protection systems side of the business and for the growth that led, in the late 1990s, to the founding of Universo.
That brings us to exactly this: the founding of Universo and its separation from Bosica.
Universo was founded in January 1999. Around that time our roles began to take shape: I was increasingly responsible for Universo and my sister Tina for Bosica. It was a generational transition we lived through intensely, from a very young age. Those were very unusual years for our industry. We took big steps, some of them probably at the wrong time, but our sense of responsibility wouldn’t let us turn back. Commitments, once made, had to be honored.
It didn’t happen by chance. We wanted it. My sister and I always kept the companies separate, but with mutual responsibility, each of us in our own role. I always called them “two pies”: not one pie to be divided but two separate pies. We planned it ten or twenty years before it happened. In the end the transaction was simple: two share transfers, no traumatic separation.
Are you already thinking about the third generation?
We both have children. Mine are already working in the business, while Tina’s still have a few years to go. We probably started planning the company’s future, without realizing it, when our four children were born. We had seen plenty of things go wrong at other companies: bankruptcies, failed generational transitions. We kept a close eye on those stories and we were very careful.
What defined you most along the way?
Responsibility. Toward our families, toward those who were no longer with us, toward our mother, toward those who would come after: our spouses, our children. We felt responsible for everything that had been achieved up to that point. We are very responsible people; our parents taught us that when we were young. When we take on a responsibility, we see it through to the end and we do it properly.
Have there been times when you’ve wondered if you were heading in the right direction?
That’s a very simple question, but not a trivial one. When things are going well, you might feel particularly smart, important and capable. When they’re going really badly, you think you’re getting everything wrong. The balance lies in not going overboard: not letting your ego get too inflated when things go well, and questioning yourself when they go badly. You have to look around, because you won’t always be right. What you’re doing isn’t necessarily wrong, it just needs adjusting and correcting.
A car never goes perfectly straight. You’re always correcting your course with the steering wheel, whether the road is winding or straight. Running a business is the same: constant correction, every day.
Besides responsibility, what qualities define Universo?
Ethics and humanity. Ethics could even be seen as a disadvantage in business, because it’s a world full of shortcuts. We’re not a company that takes shortcuts: we follow an ethical approach in our operations, in sales, in how we run the business and in how we manage our resources.
As for humanity, that too could be seen as a disadvantage. If an employee has a problem, it becomes our problem. If a team member is struggling, we worry about it. If a client is unhappy, we worry that we’ve caused them problems. When they cause problems for us, we don’t dwell on it: that’s part of our sense of responsibility. Suppliers are sacred. Employees are sacred. Any problem that doesn’t come from them is the business owner’s responsibility. Mine. Period. It must never be offloaded onto anyone else, under any circumstances.
Let’s talk about young people. Do you believe in their potential?
Absolutely. It’s inevitable anyway. Accepting young people isn’t a matter of choice: they are the future, and we won’t live forever. In our view, young people have some practical limitations, because we come from a more hands-on generation. But they bring more innovation, they’re fresher and more in step with the times. We used to pick up a screwdriver, a hammer and a chisel. Today they can do the same job with a smartphone. The tools change, but the work doesn’t.
We’ve been investing for several years now in platforms, IT management systems and artificial intelligence: tools that this younger generation will be running. Those of us of a certain age won’t be the ones to grow these companies through new technology. And young people will never learn the old methods. So there’s no choice: we have to invest in technology. Not to gain an economic edge, but because the way companies are run is changing. If you can’t give a young person a screwdriver, you have to give them a digital tool. It’ll do the same job, maybe even more.
If 52-year-old Lorenzo Bosica could talk to a young Lorenzo Bosica, what would he tell him?
I’d tell him what I’ve done with my life and try to help him see where to be less reckless, so he wouldn’t have to scramble to keep up with the kind of responsibilities that kept me awake night and day. I’d teach him everything in life that turned out to be right, the things that, on balance, have given us so much. But I’d also tell him: “Listen, watch out. I ran into this, that and the other, and it hasn’t all been a bed of roses.”
One last question: where do you see yourself as an entrepreneur ten years from now?
The generational handover is already under way. There’s no rush, since I’m still young, so it will happen slowly. The slower you do it, the better your chances of success. Every month, every year, a small step back. That applies within the family, as the new generation comes in, and with the young people in the company too. We need to step back a little and probably listen more. But the experience we’ve built up over so many years should keep us on our toes. I’ve never believed a company can run itself, with a manager simply bringing you a report at the end of the month. We’re always on the front line, always keeping tabs on things. A few years from now, after taking many steps back, we’ll be happy and perhaps satisfied too, if we’ve taken those steps well.
If someone loves growing tomatoes, they should grow tomatoes. If someone else wants to make tomato sauce, they’ll buy the tomatoes and make the sauce. And if a third person wants to cook, they’ll buy the sauce ready-made and cook with it. It’s all tomatoes in the end, but there are different stages.