Brescia, An outcome-based museum management model. The importance of the relationship

Brescia, The ongoing pandemic has called into question the museum model based on "positional income" deriving in particular from the exploitation of over-tourism, thanks to which museum attractors had continuous flows of visitors which guaranteed economic sustainability without encouraging the improvement of museum services with a view to increasing value in the territory they belong to.
The crisis resulting from the emergency we are experiencing has highlighted the reasons for the collapse of this model at least in the short term and museum management realities are called upon to find new sustainable tools for the future and to do this it is essential to evaluate the impact that a cultural institution produces on and with its stakeholders.
The research project carried out by the Brescia Musei Foundation and the School of Management of the Polytechnic of Milano and aimed at implementing a new model of outcome-based management and control of cultural realities. Fondazione Brescia Musei, which has among its strategic objectives the relationship with its stakeholders, won the “Sustainable Culture” tender of Fondazione Cariplo (AEC – SUSTAINABLE CULTURE – 2016) and thanks to this support it started a process of organizational transformation of the institution based on the co-creation of value between the museum and the territorial network.
The project will be presented on Thursday 26 November at 17 pm in a webinar format entitled An outcome-based museum management model. The importance of the relationship. We will give an account of the research process that led to this model, which due to its characteristic elements presents a high scalability profile. Speakers at the presentation of the research results will be: Michela Arnaboldi, Full Professor School of Management, Polytechnic of Milano; Deborah Agostino, Associate Professor School of Management, Polytechnic of Milano; Camilla Marini, PhD student School of Management, Polytechnic of Milano; this will be followed by a commentary on the results by the director of the Brescia Musei Foundation, Stefano Karadjov, followed by a round table, moderated by Claudio Bocci, Ravello Lab Committee, in which Pierluigi Sacco, IULM University and OECD Venice will participate; Ledo Prato, General Secretary of the Mecenate 90 Association; Martina Bagnoli, Director of the Estensi Galleries of Modena and Antonio Lampis, Director of the Culture Department of the Province of Bolzano.
The research developed highlights the way to activate new models based on the relationship with stakeholders thanks to the measurement of the value created for the territory.
The project starts from monitoring the relationship systems that exist between the cultural institution and its stakeholders, both from a territorial point of view and from the point of view of profiling users and relationship management costs.
Starting from the mapping of the relationship, the project develops a series of parameters and methods of evaluation and measurement of the museum activity through a system developed in a management dashboard divided into four macro areas which allow the quality to be displayed objectively and on an analytical basis. of the cultural proposal of an institution.
Relational management demonstrates that the museum is not just a provider of a heritage access service, but is a producer of a value that is the result of the needs of the territory, the result of unexpressed needs that can now be constantly monitored to dynamically orient the proposal so that it reflects the question as much as possible, clarified by data analysis and customer satisfaction.
The outcome of the collaboration in the three-year period 2017 - 2019 between Brescia Musei and the School of Management Politecnico di Milano it also resulted in an important positive externality already activated by the Brescia Musei Foundation. On the one hand, the project defined the new management model to support the cultural institution in the pursuit of economic and social sustainability, mapping the relationships with stakeholders, the value system of the Brescia Musei Foundation and the dynamics of co-creation of value inherent in the network of institutions and citizens that links it to the territory; on the other hand, the model allowed immediate application and testing by implementing the Alliance for Culture partnership project between September 2019 and May 2020, a project that sees the network of Brescia Museums Foundation strengthen itself with a three-year pact, with over 41 local institutions and companies. Alliance for Culture is the innovative public-private pact that updates the traditional formats of cultural fundraising, with the aim of establishing a long-lasting, participatory and mutually beneficial relationship between the Foundation and companies, educational institutions, development bodies and foundations territory in the name of valorising and promoting the city's artistic heritage and supporting major cultural communication events.
The health and consequently social emergency makes the participation of those business entities that can become a driving factor in supporting cultural programming decisive, making them proud actors of this identity relationship.
“The distinctive aspect of the project – underlines Deborah Agostino, of the School of Management of the Polytechnic of Milano – is that the model is configured both as a relational and interaction tool with the local system, and as a measurement and monitoring tool from a sustainability perspective, based on values ​​co-created with stakeholders. The institution comes to be configured as a plural subject also in the management tool. In fact, the very design of the management model took place in direct dialogue with the stakeholders".
Stefano Karadjov, director of the Brescia Musei Foundation observes: “All museums constitute the best historical and demo-ethno-anthropological repertoire of testimony to the heritage and territorial cultural identity on which they insist. Although this evidence is clear in the contents and strategic choices of artistic and exhibition programming, it has been curiously disconnected in the past from museum management and organizational choices. We must instead consider this "community-based" aspect of the cultural institution and the museum and to do so we need efficient monitoring and control models available to the decision-maker.
The great work carried out by the Brescia Musei Foundation in collaboration with the Polytechnic of Milano places the Foundation at the absolute forefront in the availability of planning tools for new strategies that have the most positive impact on the territory. In particular, the monitoring dashboard represents a proposal to support management and communication, reporting and control with high scalability profiles also in other contexts and therefore we hope that in such a complex moment, other museums can adapt it."