Starting early in the nineties, the characteristics of the products offered by Lecco's mechanical industries changed considerably: only the stages with the highest added value were maintained and the range of production was reduced and shifted toward high quality products in areas less exposed to factors of depression.

The entrepreneur went through a transition phase from the role of a mere technician to that of a manager, oriented toward maintaining the company extremely dynamic on the technological plane; this made it possible to achieve a greater opening toward foreign markets while avoiding direct competition on the provincial territory. In addition, the companies realised that flexibility and quality were no longer enough, but that it was necessary to have co-ordinated management of all the fundamental strategic elements: costs, innovation, service.

One of the most significant changes that has occurred in these last few years has to do with supplier relations: in place of the generic relationship based on trust, typical in past years, there is more and more demand for rigorous reliability in deliveries and, more in general, in the procedures connected with orders. Attention to detail moves in step with the technical advantages offered by the new, impetuous growth of operating flexibility with computerised management, from design to storage, also for communications with international markets and adaptation to the most severe parameters of quality certification.

On the eve of the year 2000, the main strong points of Lecco's industrial enterprises can be identified by the presence of a widespread entrepreneurial culture, exclusive technical skills, high quality products and the ability to deal with markets through the potential of the entire "system".

It is precisely in this logic of a modern system that the functions of the system find their sense and scope. It is an organism of co-ordination, of course, but above all one providing incentives and promotion of a specific entrepreneurial identity that has centuries of history behind it and has already laid solid foundations for its future.