Born in 2004, the Unicredit Small Business Observatory has reached its eighth edition this year, confirming itself as a useful tool for listening to small Italian businesses to understand their changing needs year after year.
This year the analysis focuses on business networks, key to the relaunch of local small and medium-sized enterprises and the Italian economy. Unicredit has concretely worked to offer financial instruments and services specifically designed for those companies that decide to merge. An example of this is Bond delle Reti, a loan that allows companies to develop their business plans via the Internet.
Network aggregation, the winning model for recovery.
Forms of aggregation and networking: this is the theme to which the 2011-2012 edition of the Unicredit Report on Small Businesses is dedicated, which this year is enriched with an analytical comparison between small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses.
The new challenges of globalization and the problems connected to the current economic crisis have brought to the fore the importance of network collaboration of small and medium-sized enterprises, model of excellence and bet for the future. In fact, the typical weaknesses of small and medium-sized enterprises are not reproduced in network systems thanks to the strengthening of knowledge and professional, managerial and organizational skills.
The word to the entrepreneurs
The eighth edition is articulated along some interconnected aspects: internationalization, innovation and networking between companies. The analysis makes use of over 6.000 interviews with small Italian entrepreneurs, Unicredit customers, and a questionnaire to about 200 trade associations and Confidi. New this year is a survey on medium-sized manufacturing companies, made up of approximately 1.400 interviews with client and non-client companies.
The strength of the report is also the analysis of the confidence index of Italian entrepreneurs, a valuable tool for a better understanding of the "sentiment" of entrepreneurs and an important key to understanding the trend of the economy. To obtain this data, the results of a questionnaire administered to more than 6.000 small and 1.000 medium-sized entrepreneurs, customers and non-clients, were examined.
Among the topics covered by the eighth edition of the Report: the climate of trust, business strategies, innovation, collaboration between local actors, belonging to production chains, internationalization, the relationship with the bank, the role of trade associations and Confidi in the current operating environment.
Download the Report in pdf
Attachments: Unicredit Pmi report.pdf
