It’s not simply a name change.
And it’s not simply a question of marketing.
The decision announced by Techedge, on the eve of its twenty years of life and history, is the response to a need to redefine its identity and to reposition itself within the framework of a very changed socio-economic scenario, with new objectives and an increasingly clear commitment and declared in the name of sustainability and circular business models.
Founded in 2004, in 2023 Techedge therefore chooses a name change: Avvale.
A non-random name, in which we can already find the new attitude of society towards a technology seen not as an end in itself, but as a tool to “make use of” (precisely) to “create new, more sustainable business models ”, built on a clear principle: digital technologies combined with circular economy models make it possible to obtain a sustainable profit, as explained by the CEO and founder of the company Domenico Restuccia.
And it is to him that we asked the reasons for this change.
Domenico Restuccia: it is not the technology that is fundamental, but the use that is made of it
“To understand the reasons for this change, we must first look at this company. A company which has grown a lot in twenty years and which, above all, has continuously broadened its horizons, without ever losing the trust of its customers”.
A growth played both on the expansion of the offer portfolio and on acquisitions.
“There was certainly a need to rationalize everything, but there was also the recognition that the world today is totally different from what it was twenty years ago”.
And in twenty years the relationship with technology has also changed.
“When technology becomes pervasive as it is today – explains Restuccia – what matters, the differentiating element is the use that is made of it as one makes use – precisely – of technology“.
“We have made a journey, we love technology – he continues -. Over time we have learned that a passion for technology allows us to do positive things. And the time has come for change.”
A change that looks to the future and that in a fragile context such as the current one can only have sustainability at heart, with an awareness that, however, comes precisely from the company’s long history.
“We deal with measuring performance and given the change in regulations for some years now we have been posing the problem of measuring the performance of non-financial data”.
The new Avvale: pursuing sustainability and profitability
Restuccia therefore speaks of a sustainability that is not a facade, but measurable, improvable.
“And if I am a company I want and must be both profitable and sustainable. Sustainability must not be detrimental to profitability, at least not in the long term. It must be an investment and not a cost, otherwise no company would go in that direction”.
And if therefore the aim is to be both profitable and sustainable, then we need to understand what are the means by which this goal can be achieved.
Restuccia chooses maximum pragmatism: sustainability cannot collide with profit. The risk is that this movement is only “philosophical”.
“To achieve this goal, the unavoidable tool is digital innovation. Digital and circular go hand in hand and are the two most powerful means that companies have at their disposal to transform sustainability into an investment in the future, in a profitable, sustainable future”.
“Everything we do must be oriented towards greater optimization of resources, less waste, to ensure that products and materials can circulate for as long as possible, ensuring that they express their maximum value”.
Pursue the equation: circular economy + digital innovation = sustainable profit
It’s not theory.
For Domenico Restuccia all this already translates into concrete examples.
We have been helping our customers for some time to optimize production planning and logistics, reducing the consumption of raw materials, the CO2 footprint and maximizing the use of production waste along the supply chain.
And today we can go further, do even more…
Therefore, if sustainability is an end together with profit and circularity and technology are the means to obtain it, it becomes essential for Restuccia to have both the skills and the right approach.
And even here there is little room for theory.
Because, for example, if you want to maximize the life of products and materials over time, then those products need to be smart and connected.
“So the first pillar of Avvale’s offer will be that of services and technological solutions suitable for ensuring that products are designed in a smart way, that they are always connected and are able to exchange information, or that they are traceable. Dialogue with a product or trace a product or a material are the foundations of any circularity process, as is connecting them with users”.
In fact, if, from a perspective of circularity, you want a material or product to go backwards, it is essential to have a relationship with the customer such that the latter is encouraged to do so.
We therefore move from a punctual relationship to an ongoing relationship with customers, adopting servitization models.
Connecting products and materials is the first pillar of the new Avvale, to which a second is added: the ability to automate or hyper-automate processes within the ecosystem.
“Circularity – explains Restuccia – implies that the level of collaboration between companies and the level of data that companies will have to exchange and consequently the processes that they will have to share are destined to increase significantly”.
For this we need to work on much more integrated smart supply chains, on more solid ERPs, on much more powerful business process management tools. These are not new concepts, Restuccia is certain of this.
We have been talking about it, at least on a theoretical level, for over twenty years. But they had never moved from theory to practice because they lacked the technologies to bring them to scale.
The enabling infrastructures: cloud and connectivity
“The two enabling infrastructures were missing, without which all this would not be possible: bandwidth, because otherwise the data does not circulate, and the cloud”.
An enormous potential rests on these two enabling infrastructures.
Because virtual and augmented reality, metaverse, Digital Twin, blockchain, tracking, computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning and certified data, digital passports and all those building blocks that make all the initiatives that lead to the sustainability.
“When one thinks of the topic of sustainability, today the discussion is very oriented towards materials and renewable energy. But if we want these business models to be viable, then we need technology. And it is here that companies such as Avvale and other Digital Scientists play a key role”.
The role of a reality like Avvale is therefore of support in rethinking the operating system of companies from a perspective of circularity.
“We therefore want to contribute through digital and process innovation to a new circular operating system, which will allow companies and ecosystems to be profitable on the one hand and sustainable on the other”.
Concretely, therefore, the new Avvale will work on three fundamental pillars: the connection of products and users, the collaboration between business ecosystems and the adoption of exponential technologies that enable the transformation we have discussed so far.
All this, it goes without saying, in a logic of continuity with the history of Techedge and with the consolidated skills in the field of ERP, hyper automation, edge computing, IoT and IIoT, native cloud apps, API and integration systems.