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What drives the competitiveness and development of the Italian entrepreneurial fabric is growth, which does not mean size alone, but also a vision that ensures the cultural regeneration that allows companies to confront and absorb profound changes in the global economic framework.
The digital transition is one of the main propellants of change, and is a field in which Italian enterprise has both strengths and weaknesses. Small and medium-sized companies are in line with their European counterparts for basic digital application, but are weak on the big data and AI front. The main obstacle is a lack of know-how, with company size making it difficult to attract skills and talent.
Other factors show that Italy’s journey toward innovative capitalism is still a long one. For example, the country ranks high on investments in machinery but under-performs on intangible assets. Of course, Italy also has major strong points to draw upon, with successful growth stories that can serve as examples and should be absorbed systemically. While the national economy has been ranked the most important exporter in the Eurozone over the last four years, with 8.5% growth, the “fifth capitalism” now taking shape is a positive evolution of the fourth characterized by local export clusters and micro-multinationals. The firms of this fifth capitalism rely on having a direct presence on a range of international markets with value chains capable of fueling foreign growth, and show a more marked receptivity to financial markets than traditional banking credit.
Yet, these strong points comprise a framework of small niche markets that risks being too fragmented to shepherd the country through the technological and industrial transitions of the future. In the organizational and financial revolutions underway, only capacity for regeneration will equip a company for the accompanying challenges.
New enterprises are those more suited to resolving emerging problems. Italy, however, is having to offset a “lost decade” of investments in new technologies stretching from the burst of the Internet bubble to the 2013 legislation on start-ups. The removal of a series of bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles – along with the introduction of institutional actors capable of sustaining the venture capital sector – is breathing new life into a start-up sector that, while still lagging behind, has regained a momentum comparable to that of other European competitors. A continental problem persists though: Europe has to date been a major exporter of technology but lacks aggregators and consolidators; despite investment levels second to none, the Old Continent still struggles to turn resources spent into concrete output.
Europe’s difficulties, in any case, do not exempt Italy from the task of initiating cultural change. The first and most important step would be to encourage a greater propensity for risk-taking. Underlying that must be the concept of merit-based promotion, which fosters innovation and counters an invasive culture of profits that slows even the best productive energies. After all, in a world that favors international growth, the very concept of manager must evolve to resemble more and more that of the entrepreneur since top-down processes are not effective when geographic scale and company presence increase considerably.
Government policies, moreover, constitute an essential facilitating instrument. From an economic standpoint, the use of diplomatic channels is also important to maintaining innovation and internationalization as central to a company’s growth, as is a clear and robust industrial policy. An ulterior aspect concerns the development of a school and university system capable of imparting technical and technological skills, teamwork habits and an open mentality toward the world and experience abroad. Education oriented toward a culture of enterprise is already a proven factor in the success of many family-run businesses that have grown and kept pace with the need for generational turnover; this thanks to a formative preparation that views the new generations as both future managers and future stakeholders. However, these changes must involve the entire company organizational structure; and this without neglecting the importance of training and attracting the necessary human capital – with various levels of skill. Such resources must be open to the world and capable of embracing the various transitions underway, with a view to generating growth.