The one overlooking theera post-Covid it’s a’Italy that changes, but that to really embrace the digital transformation still has a long way to go. If, in fact, it smart working remains a cornerstone of business strategies for the future as well, the company of our country seems to remain much more inclined tooutsourcing instead ofinvestment of resources for development and innovation, l’automation and the robotization of your business.
This is the photograph that emerges from the data collected in the report “Business Leaders Survey” realized by Business International – Fiera Milano Media to analyze the real state of the art of the Italian company as seen by its front-line managers. The research, carried out between April and May 2021 on a sample of over 200 managers active in some of the most important medium and large companies operating in Italy, showed what the sentiment is and what the prospects are according to the finance, HR, procurement, sales, marketing and risk management directors of our country and was presented during the opening conference of Business Leaders,
digital event dedicated to the C-levels of the future and organized by Business International – Fiera Milano Media.
Smart working convinces, but we need to focus more on innovation
In an era of great uncertainty, what has really saved the business continuity of Italian companies has undoubtedly been smart working that, in fact, the 40% of the respondents indicate the main contrast measure adopted against the impacts of the Covid-19 and on which a further 25% of those interviewed said they wanted to aim for the next few months, with a total of 48% of the sample considered who admitted to wanting to keep it permanently as a working model also for the future. Obviously, then, furthering the analysis, also the government aid dedicated to layoffs extraordinary they played an important role in overcoming the difficulties, as confirmed by the 17,5% of the interviewees. But what is out of place, compared to this resilient framework, is the fact that, if only the 5,5% of companies revealed that they have blocked investments during this period, on the other hand it is possible to see how companies have preferred outsource the optimization of their operating processes in 10% of cases, rather than trying to focus oninnovation, l’automation and the robotization of its services, on which only the1% of the respondents. Of course, you can’t make a bundle of all the grass and certainly these months have taught a lot to many realities. To such an extent that, if they are the 6% of those interviewed stated that his company has changed its business model to face the critical issues proposed by the pandemic, in the coming months instead more than double the reality (13%) provides for this intervention. While the respondents who declare they want to implement solutions of robotization e automation go up to8,5% (+850%). Net of these positive growth rates, however, it is evident that these values are still almost negligible to allow a real wave of change capable of involving the whole country which, however, looking to the future, in the 24% of the business cases detected will continue to focus its attention onoutsourcing also in the coming months.
The skills of the managers of the future
Still perhaps too focused on resisting the crisis, moreover, almost one in four managers (23,7%), in Italy, thinks that resilience, flexibility and stress tolerance will be crucial qualities for success in the future too,
placing creativity, originality and initiative in second place instead (16,3%). This choice is certainly dictated by that feeling of great uncertainty that companies continue to experience also in Italy and which, combined with a long period of social distancing and the necessary reorganization of activities, puts the focus in third position on Team work and time management (10%), followed on an equal footing by training and continuous learning (9%) e Critical thinking e predictive analytics (9%). While, further down in the classic, we find those technical skills that companies struggle to find on our market, such as data analysis and innovation (8,7%), technology use/design, computational thinking & programming (2,7%). Furthermore, the last aspect that makes us understand how far there is probably still to go is the fact that skills such as leadership and social influence (8%), il problem solving (7,6%) and emotional intelligence (4,8%) which today represent the keys to good governance that knows how to put people at the center, interpret and manage situations, as well as inspire their own work team, are at the bottom of the skills desired by C-levels to face the coming months.