The survey "The performance of European companies: a benchmark analysis" by Assolombarda Confindustria Milano Monza and Brianza is now in its second edition. , Cataluña, Rhône-Alpes – in the post-crisis context. Compared to the themes of the first edition – innovation, internationalization, corporate governance and structure, workforce, credit and bureaucracy – the survey is enriched with an entire section dedicated to Manufacturing 4.0.
First of all, the survey shows that Lombardy recovers in the field of research and innovation compared to Baden-Württemberg and Bayern (the top performers among the motor regions of Europe). In particular, the diffusion of R&D is increasing (as much as 50% of Lombard companies carried out R&D activities in 2013-2015, around 10 percentage points more than in 2011-2013) and the propensity for innovation is strengthening.
In the three-year period 2013-2015 compared to the three-year period 2011-2013, the propensity for innovation generally increased, especially in reference to integrated innovation between products and processes. The data suggest a recovery of the companies of Lombardy, Rhône-Alpes and Cataluña compared to the German regions, both in terms of innovation in general and in terms of the use of patents and other tools for the protection of intellectual property.
In particular, in Lombardy, between 2011 and 2013, only 15,8% of companies conducted product and process innovation jointly. Between 2013 and 2015, this share doubled to 31,4%, placing Lombardy above the sample average (31,1%).
The share of companies that have carried out R&D activities also increases (+6,3% on the sample average). However, declaring research activity is not enough. It is also necessary to manage and enhance technology transfer: companies that carry out R&D activities and file patents, trademarks or industrial design are in fact associated with a 12,5% productivity gain. In this regard, knowing that technology transfer is a well-known weakness of the Italian innovative system, the data revealed in this survey is positive: the share of Lombard companies that use forms of intellectual property protection increases from 7,6% in 2011 -2013 to 19,1% in 2013-2015, approaching the benchmark average (22%).
As for the issue of smart manufacturing (the new survey contained in this survey), the data show that the companies of Lombardy, Rhône-Alpes and Cataluña are still moving very slowly compared to the German ones. Baden-Württemberg and Bayern are the most advanced regions with regard to the digitization of production processes: around 12% of companies present a high degree of digitization in terms of 4.05, against a sample average of 9,3% (8,9% in Lombardy, 7,6% in Emilia-Romagna). Furthermore, in the same German regions, about 20% of companies use machinery with mechanical or IT integration, while in Rhône-Alpes, Cataluña, Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy this share is three times smaller (7-8%).
Not surprisingly, the high digitization of production processes is a key driver of business competitiveness: companies already in an advanced stage of adoption of the smart manufacturing model are associated with an 18% higher productivity. There is also a positive and significant correlation between the adoption of these technologies and the probability of having process innovation (+42,2% compared to the sample average) and organizational innovation (+18%). This is relevant for the purpose of defining policies for the economic recovery of manufacturing. In fact, since a high degree of digitization is positively associated with process and organizational innovation and since highly innovative companies manage to be competitive at an international level even in the presence of a high ULC, then stimulating the reorganization of business processes is a further element on to insist on at the policy level.
Looking further into the issue of internationalization, in line with what was observed in 2013, the companies in the sample show a good commercial presence on international markets: as many as 51% carry out export activities in a systematic way - over 60% if we also consider companies who look abroad on an occasional basis. The percentage of exporting companies is particularly high for Catalonia and Lombardy (together about 10 pp above the sample average, in 2015 but also in 2013). The data and its stability compared to the previous survey are symptomatic of the physiological weakness of the Spanish and Italian domestic markets. On the other hand, the low share of importing companies in Germany is confirmed: 9,6% in Baden-Württemberg and 21,6% in Bayern compared to a sample average of 32,1%.
This validates the hypothesis put forward in the previous edition regarding a structure in Germany characterized by a greater development of domestic value chains and vertically integrated industries than elsewhere. Compared to the previous edition, the number of companies involved in more sophisticated internationalization activities than exports, such as international outsourcing or offshoring, has increased, but they remain a minimal share of the sample (5,0% compared to 3,7% in 2013). The participation of enterprises in global value chains is also substantially stable compared to 2013: on average for the sample, the share of enterprises with low participation is around 56%, those with medium participation are 31% and finally just under 15% of enterprises with high participation. In this context, however, the repositioning of Lombard enterprises should be noted: enterprises with low participation decreased from 71,1% in 2013 to 49,3% in 2015, while they increased from 5,6% in 2013 to 14,6% in 2015 enterprises with high participation (for a national comparison, in Emilia-Romagna there are enterprises with low participation for 70% and enterprises with high participation for 3,6%).
In terms of corporate governance and structure, the performances of Lombardia, Cataluña and Rhône-Alpes are underlined. In 2013, compared to Baden-Württemberg taken as a benchmark, Lombardy appeared to have significantly more family-run businesses or with a share of managers belonging to the owning family of at least 50%. In addition, fewer companies with decentralized management and the provision of bonuses were associated with Lombardy. In 2015 these systematic differences compared to BadenWürttemberg disappear. In Catalonia, the path taken towards managerialization is even more marked: compared to Baden-Württemberg in 2015, there is a greater probability of finding companies with decentralized management (+25,6%, an increase compared to 2013). Furthermore, although there is still a lower probability of finding companies that give bonuses than in Baden-Württemberg, the share of such companies almost doubles between 2013 and 2015.
For the Rhône-Alpes, on the other hand, the greater diffusion of group structures is confirmed - 25,6% of companies are part of a group, against a sample average of 16,2% - combined with the lowest share of family businesses in of the sample (63,9% compared to the sample mean of 84,6%).
Attachments: The Assolombarda report on European productive regions
