Piaggio: Driving Success in Compact Commercial Vehicles

The niche in the automotive industry, which is compact commercial vehicles, is claimed by a selected handful of multinational companies; one of them being the renowned, century-old Italian company Piaggio. The fourth biggest maker and marketer of scooters and motorcycles globally, Piaggio's brand names include Aprilia, Derbi, Gilera, Ligier, Moto Guzzi, Piaggio and Vespa. With over 600,000 scooters and motorcycles being produced yearly, Piaggio had a 2010 revenue of 1,485.4 million euros and a net income of 42.8 million euros.

Established by Rinaldo Piaggio in Sestri Ponente, Italy in 1884, Piaggio started out producing railway carriages and trains, and in World Wars I and II, was manufacturing aircraft. Enrico Piaggio, Rinaldo's son, inherited the business and decided to leave the aircraft industry in order to make modern, compact yet affordable modes of transportation. The idea was simple: to create vehicles that both men and women could drive easily, could carry passengers and would not get any of the riders' clothes dirty.

Piaggio released the Vespa scooter in 1964, the name taken from the Italian for "wasp". Because of the Vespa's success, Piaggio went on to produce similar vehicles throughout the 1960's. The twentieth century saw troubled times for Piaggio in terms of finances and ownership, but Roberto Colaninno, the company's present Chairman and CEO, took the reins and held the company above water.

Presently, Piaggio has its headquarters in Pontedera, Italy. Colaninno is running the company with the help of Michele Pallottini, General Manager for Finance. Piaggio has some 7,500 employees working for it in its various operations hubs in 50 countries worldwide. Piaggios continues to make high-quality scooters and motorcycles and its most recent model was the electric scooter, a hybrid version of the Piaggio MP3 that uses both petrol and electric motors, in an effort to make changes in their environmental impact on the world.