It is sometimes said that the Italian entrepreneurial fabric, which is known to consist mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises, is a bit reluctant to innovate. But that's not entirely true: according to Banca Ifis' Market Watch PMI observatory, many SMEs have not stopped betting on Industry 4.0 and despite the pandemic, 52% of them has introduced at least one product, process or organizational innovation between 2020 and 2021. The survey, carried out between March and April in collaboration with Format Research on a representative sample of 1.800 Italian companies, highlights the decisive contribution of digital technologies in making companies more agile and competitive, thanks to a transformation path that responds to new business needs.
4.0 technologies are decisive for growth and competitiveness and there are even more SMEs that declare their intention to adopt them in the two-year period 2022-2023: counting those that already do so, almost three out of four will invest in innovation, with cybersecurity comes first (31%) and second the cloud (25%). Smaller but still significant investments in the industrial IoT, the Internet of things (16%), supply chain management (15%), 3D printing and additive manufacturing (8%), Big Data and artificial intelligence (8%) . Of lesser intensity, in terms of investments, there are then: collaborative and interconnected robots, in which 7% of those interviewed have invested in the last two years, augmented reality (5%) and nanotechnologies and intelligent materials (1% of investments made but with a +6% growth expected in the next two years).
In detail by sector, the Banca Ifis study identifies Chemistry-Pharmaceuticals and the Home System as those with the greatest drive in technological investments: respectively with 76% and 63% of companies that have introduced an innovation. Technology follows at 60%. The estimate is for a 6% increase in SMEs that will invest by 2023. With respect to the methods of obtaining economic resources, 56% of the SMEs interviewed resorted to self-financing, while 35% to bank loans. Only 7% used public support. However, innovation does not concern all SMEs to the same extent: in companies with between 50 and 249 employees the percentage reaches 70%, in small companies (20-49 employees) the share of those investing in technology is 55% while in micro enterprises with less than 20 employees it is equal to 47%.
Content written in collaboration with Philip Morris Italia
