Hey, entrepreneur —
You have a solid product. Italian clients who've respected you for years. Maybe a few references in France or Spain. For a while now you've been looking at the German market systematically — Germany is Europe's first manufacturing economy, your German competitors work well, and you're convinced you have something good to offer.
You book a trade show. Put the Italian flag on your booth. The brochure says "Italian quality since 1987". You talk with a dozen buyers. Some are cordial, some ask for the catalogue, one says they'll be in touch. They're not.
It's not a product problem. It's a brand problem — in the most precise sense: you're speaking a language your German industrial counterpart doesn't use.
The misconception of Made in Italy in B2B
Made in Italy works — really, not just rhetoric. In fashion, food, interior design, luxury automotive, it's one of the world's most powerful origin brands. The German buyer entering a Milan boutique or choosing artisanal pasta knows exactly what they're buying with that label.
The German buyer evaluating a hydraulic component supplier, machine tool manufacturer, automation system provider — they're using completely different criteria. They're not buying geographical origin. They're buying documented reliability, technical specs met, on-time delivery, reactive post-sales support. They're buying certainty that if something goes wrong, it gets fixed without debate or delay.
In that context, "Italian quality since 1987" says nothing useful. Worse: for part of the market it activates the opposite stereotype from what you want — creative yes, but punctual? Rigorous with documentation? Ready to send a technician to Düsseldorf within 48 hours?
Made in Italy is a strength that has to be earned in the German market afterwards — once you've already proven who you are. It's not a door opener. It's a finishing touch, at best.
The four mistakes that repeat
1. Positioning on creativity in a market that buys Zuverlässigkeit
Italian SMEs tend to present themselves through flexibility, ability to customise, speed in finding non-standard solutions. These are real strengths. But the German buyer — especially in large manufacturing — doesn't search for flexibility first. They search for a supplier that won't keep them up at night. Systematic reliability — Zuverlässigkeit — is the floor. Without it, everything else doesn't even get considered.
2. Arriving without adequate German-language documentation
Catalogue in Italian with machine-translated English pages doesn't qualify anyone in the DACH market. It's not linguistic snobbery — it signals serious market commitment. Who didn't do it isn't ready yet, in the literal sense: not ready to support a German client in their language, their procedures, their documentation standards. The implicit message is this supplier won't be there when needed.
3. Showing up without local DACH references
In German B2B, the unspoken first question any buyer asks themselves is: "Who else in my market already uses them?" Not from lack of judgment — but because the risk of being the first client of an unqualified foreign supplier is real and carries cost. An Italian company entering Germany without a verifiable local reference starts with serious handicap. The first sale is always hardest, and needs to be treated as strategic investment, not normal business.
4. Underestimating timelines
The German market has slow decision cycles by definition — not bureaucracy, but culture. Suppliers rarely change, relationships build over time, trust gets earned visit by visit, year by year. An Italian SME expecting results in six months from a German market initiative almost always gets discouraged and stops before the work produces fruit. Those who succeed treat German market entry as three-year project, not campaign.
The Prima Power case: competing in Trumpf's house
Prima Power is part of Prima Industrie, founded in Turin in 1977. It makes laser machines for sheet-metal processing — same market where Trumpf, based in Ditzingen in Baden-Württemberg, is the undisputed world leader with technology considered benchmark by all producers.
For Prima Power, entering Germany meant walking into the house of its strongest competitor globally, in a technical sector where reputation builds over decades of installations, uptime data, and references among production engineers.
Strategy wasn't "we're Italian so we bring some creativity." It was: secure Germany with local structure, German-speaking technicians, flawless documentation, and most importantly concentrate on segments and applications where Prima Power's technical advantage was demonstrable and verifiable. Not the whole market — one precise slice where the fight wasn't on Trumpf's historical-reputation territory but on specific technical parameters Prima could win.
Today Prima Power operates with its own subsidiary in Germany, dozens of active installations across the DACH market. Hasn't taken Trumpf's crown. Built credible position in a market where no one would have bet on an Italian company.
The lesson isn't company size — Prima Industrie is publicly listed with far different resources than a typical SME. The lesson is method: local structure, precise segment, structural patience, demonstrable advantages. Scaled to SME size, this framework works.
How to think differently
If you're evaluating structured entry into the German market, three questions matter before you book the next trade show booth.
First: in which specific German market segment do you have an advantage you can demonstrate, not just describe? Not "we're good at everything" — which application, which client type, which technical problem can you solve better than a local competitor? Without precise answer, positioning in the DACH market will stay vague, and the German buyer has no time for vague.
Second: do you have one DACH reference, even just one, that a buyer could call to verify? If not, building it is priority — even at non-optimal commercial terms, even with a smaller client. That first local reference is worth more than a thousand brochures.
Third: are you willing to invest 24-36 months before expecting structural return? If no, probably not the right moment. The German market rewards companies that are there to stay — and it detects fast when a foreign company is just passing through.
If you're working on DACH market entry and want to reason through positioning, write me. It's exactly the kind of work we do.
Until next time — plant roots first, then grow.
Alex
