The pandemic has increased territorial, gender, age and productive sector gaps, but digital is the lever to reduce them. As shown in the dossier presented today by Unioncamere, during the Assembly of Presidents of the Chambers of Commerce, the use of new technologies limits the differences between small and medium-large companies, contributes to supporting the governance of family-run manufacturing companies, facilitates the recovery of service companies, most harassed by Covid. But there is still a long way to go: only 26% of Italian companies are aware of the 4.0 Business Plan and, among these, 9%, despite knowing it, in any case do not invest. For the rest, that is to say for two thirds of Italian manufacturing, the tools deployed and the great opportunities offered by technologies are not (yet) on the agenda.
“Digitization is worth up to 7 points of GDP, but we still have a huge delay to make up for“, Underlines the president of Unioncamere, Carlo Sangalli. “The National Recovery and Resilience Plan represents a unique opportunity, but millions of SMEs, artisans and self-employed workers must be actively involved. The Digital Business Points created by the Chambers of Commerce have introduced over 350 thousand companies to enabling technologies in recent years through thousands of training courses, assessments and operational support. And today this special network is an international best practice recognized by the OECD and the European Commission ”.
“The Chambers of Commerce consider it essential – explains Sangalli – that assistance and support will be provided to SMEs in the next crucial years by adopting the model of the US Sba (Small Business Administration). There is no need to create an instrument from scratch, but it is necessary to entrust this task at the local level to the Chambers of Commerce, the closest contact to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises on the crucial issues for the development of our country “.
According to data from Unioncamere and the Guglielmo Tagliacarne Study Center, 70% of micro and small businesses that have started the digital turnaround believe they can reach pre-Covid productivity levels as early as 2022 (against 61% of those that have not yet invested in new technologies), thus aligning themselves with the share of medium-large companies that have the same forecast.
Family businesses have been particularly affected by the negative effects of the pandemic crisis and only in 6 out of 10 cases are confident of a recovery by 2022. Among those that have invested in digital, however, the share rises to 70%. Similar positive effects are found among service companies: 61% of those digitalised, in fact, believe that they will be able to eliminate the effects of the health emergency by 2022, compared to 53% of those that are not digitalized.
The Chambers of Commerce Digital Business Points (PID) in three years have brought more than 350,000 entrepreneurs closer to new technologies and the efforts made to foster the digital transition are starting to bear fruit. If half of the 32 thousand entrepreneurs who have so far carried out the self-assessment tests made available by the Chambers of Commerce are still beginners, 48% have taken a step forward, becoming Specialist, Expert or Champion. Three years ago these results were achieved by less than 40% of entrepreneurs.
This acceleration towards the use of 4.0 tools by SMEs is part of a general growth process in the digitization of businesses started three years ago thanks to the incentive policies implemented by the government and the assistance services offered by the network. of qualified subjects present on the national territory (Competence center, Dih, Edi, Pid) and today available on the Atlante i4.0 website (www.atlantei40.it) promoted by the Ministry of Economic Development and Unioncamere.
Trentino Alto Adige stands at the top of the national ranking for levels of digitalization of SMEs, having a digitalization level of 2.31 out of a maximum score of 4, against a national average of 2.03. Lombardy follows with a score of 2.16 and Emilia-Romagna with 2.14.
The southern regions, in particular Sicily (with a digitization level of 1.84) and Calabria (with a digitization level of 1.92), are lagging behind for digital maturity of SMEs.