Digital technologies transform businesses making them faster, more agile and more competitive. This is what is happening at Pirelli which, in the 2017 Integrated Report, combines its story of "digital transformation" with that of five stories of 4.0 craftsmen who have understood digital transformation as the key to growing their business. "Data meets passion", this is the title chosen for Pirelli's 2017 Integrated Report, maintains what has now become the company's tradition of telling the report beyond the numbers by resorting to art and literature thanks to artistic and cultural contributions by the artist Emiliano Ponzi and by three internationally renowned writers: Mohsin Hamid, Tom McCarthy and Ted Chiang. In fact, it is they who have been entrusted with the task of telling how digital imposes changes in society and in people.
At Pirelli, digital innovation has led, among other things, to major organisational, process and even cultural changes which, together, have projected the company into an advanced industry 4.0 model. A digitization process that has allowed the company to revolutionize the relationship with its consumers, offering them not only products, but also absolutely innovative services, as evidenced by the launch of Coccetto in 2017 and Cyber Car in 2018, successfully presented in the scope of the Geneva Motor Show.
Just as successful are the stories told in the financial statements of five 4.0 craftsmen, who have been able to develop their business idea into an advanced technological model. This is the case, for example, of 3Bee, a company that has developed a technological hive "Hive-Tech" which allows - through the use of sensors - to monitor the entire production cycle of the hive even remotely. Alter Ego, on the other hand, a company founded by a former architect, uses 3D software to produce custom-made eco-sustainable surfboards. Demeter.life, using blockchain technology, has been able to establish a direct relationship between consumers and farmers from all over the world to improve sustainable crops. Tappezzerie Druetta, a company run by two brothers who relaunched the family business (born in 1953), resorting to 3D planning and virtual rooms that allow you to order tailor-made design products. Finally Differenthood, a company that has launched the first online platform where – starting from 5 fabrics and with over 1 billion possible combinations – one can create unique and 100% made in Italy clothing items by oneself which can then be shared with the community, making money when other users buy them.
The 4.0 "enterprises" of these young entrepreneurs were illustrated - with an equally innovative technique - by Emiliano Ponzi, an internationally renowned artist who has created covers for some of the most prestigious international publications, including The New York Times, New Yorker, Le Monde, Esquire, Vogue. Ponzi used an innovative technique for the first time to paint virtual reality, and – thanks to his style made up of essential features and pastel tones – he gave life to 3D environments and 360° immersive videos, reconstructing the world of the five 4.0 craftsmen and how they changed their piece of the world. For Tom McCarthy – one of the writers called by Pirelli to talk about the impact of digital on our lives – “in the rise of digital culture…. it is politics that becomes a literary question. Literary in the sense that public – and private – life finds itself governed by its own transcription: when everything is recorded in a register of some kind, then experience as such, and with it the problem of the free agent (we are masters of ourselves themselves? Or are all our gestures and decisions governed and decided by algorithms?), are reduced to instances and acts of writing”.
Instead, the American Ted Chiang writes: "I imagine that in the future, to prepare a speech, we will use software that can help us in the very formulation of ideas... I don't know exactly what this software will be like, but it will make it easier to express certain ideas: those that today, when we want to represent them with a series of words aligned in a rectangle, give us a hard time. The benefits of such software may not be immediately apparent, but those of writing weren't so obvious at first either." For over 145 years at the forefront in spreading its corporate culture, always in search of the most innovative forms of linguistic expression and communication, Pirelli has collaborated with leading national and international designers, graphic designers and photographers and since 2010 the company enriches its Annual Report with the contribution of personalities from the world of art and culture.
Over the years, various artists, by training, nationality and generation have represented the "soul" of Pirelli in an original and unique way. In the 2010 Report there were pictures of the photography students of Naba in Milan; the following year, the Pirelli Annual Report was enriched by 18 illustrated tables by the illustrator Stefan Glerum; in 2012 it was the turn of the cartoonist of the New Yorker, Liza Donnelly; in the 2013 Report, then, the writer and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi coordinated 10 young international talents who reworked the concept of "wheel" in the "Spinning the Wheel" project; in 2014 it was street art that found space in the Integrated Report of Pirelli, with 3 works by the Brazilian Marina Zumi, the German Dome and the Russian Alexey Luka, assembled in a single pyramidal installation exhibited at the Pirelli HangarBicocca; the following year, Pirelli called the Russian artist Pokras Lampas, an exponent of modern calligraphy, to represent the value of "uniqueness" through two exclusive elements by definition: handwriting and the fingerprint.
