the progressive digitization of the economyfrom industrial processes to styles of consumption, is exponentially multiplying the amount of generated data and available. Therefore, data and its reprocessing are assuming an increasingly central role. And that creates great opportunities for the most innovative companies capable of transforming their business models, reinventing products, services and the industrial structure.
How prepared are Italian companies?
In order to provide an updated view of the level of competitive preparation of Italian companies, The European House – Ambrosettiin collaboration with HPE e Intelhas done a survey addressed to the national business community for investigate the degree of competitive preparation that Italian companies have have in the light of a scenario that sees a growth in digitization, in the number of data, in their importance but also in the greater complexity that such data create.
The investigation involved a sample of 400 companies belonging to different sectors and of different sizesbut with at least 10 employees and with a geographical distribution consistent with that of the companies on the Italian territory.
A two-speed Italy
“What emerged from this investigation – he has declared Alessandro Viviani Senior Consultant, The European House – Ambrosetti – And an Italy that proceeds at two speedswhere we find excellent companies and companies that are a bit slower both among large and small companies”.
Digital development and digitization are prerequisites for economic development: Italy is in third place in the EU for the absolute value of the Data Economy (46.9 billion euros).
“The value of the Data Economy – commented Viviani – not only depends on the amount of information generated, but also from the data management and the possibility that these data have to communicate with each other to develop new services with high added value. However, Italy is only in 18th place in the EU for the value of the Data Economy compared to the GDP (pari al 3%) and growing at a slower pace than the EU averagerisking losing 3.7 billion euros of value generated through data by 2025”. In fact, if the Data Economy in Italy grows by 2025 as in the EU (36.5%), the country could earn 3.7 billion euros.
Obstacles to using data
“Lack of strategic focus, organizational barriers and skills are the main obstacles to the use of data in companies – added Viviani -. And the lack of skills also comes with one lack of awareness compared to the amount of data available”. Low strategic priority and insufficient budget they affect 31.5% of companies. Then there is the issue of organizational barriers and undefined responsibilities (21.7% of companies) and of skills (16%). While the 10.7% of the sample signaled what criticality insufficient data volume.
The survey highlights five important challenges for the development of the data economy in our country: the absence of a data strategy (64,7%), of a specific budget (70,9%), of organizational responsibilities (50,3%), of specialized data skills (70,4%) e of data driven products/services (77%). Although the digitization topic is on the agenda, “we still don’t have a global vision of the importance of data in the overall development of companies”, underlined Viviani.
An IT or business strategy?
35% of companies also defined its own data strategy, predominantly inserted within the more general IT strategy (24%). In 11% of cases, the data strategy is instead part of the business strategy and concretely supports the company objectives.
Circa 30% of companies make investments for the implementation of data projects, using predominantly il budget IT. In 27% of cases, the implementation of the strategy involves top management with transversal responsibilities.
Circa 15% of companies have a dedicated team of data scientists to business initiatives. While in the 23% of the answers, companies use data to design new products and services. Is in the 25% of cases the data is used for develop the product and service portfolio and to create a more integrated value chain. “The big companies – commented Viviani – they drive the capability of products not only by leveraging their own data but also in a logic of supply chain and ecosystem around its market positioning. But unfortunately this does not happen very often and is confined to the level of a single application e it is difficult to have an enlarged view of the entire company”.
How the data is managed
About the 40% of companies use advanced data lake and data hub technologies and tools for data management. And 45% use advanced and shared forms to protect information assets.
About the 20% of companies use advanced data governance organizational models increasing the level of internal collaboration and developing new business models, also involving suppliers and customers present in the value chain. The 30% of companies have advanced tools of analysis to enhance the data assets.
But only among large companies is the ability to integrate data growing between applications and with external sources. However, the ability to take advantage of digitalisation to develop new service and collaboration models it is still limited.
Finally, the companies report the personalization of services (38.1%) it’s a more effective data control (29.4%) like the main ones advantages achievable through the cloud. And the infrastructure that is best able to respond to these needs is the private cloudwhich remains the most suitable solution to meet business needsleading to a growing importance of hybrid solutions.