“Only 14% of European SMEs use the internet as a sales channel. 41% of European companies have not yet adopted advanced digital technologies in terms of mobile, social media, cloud computing and big data. Progress is uneven across sectors and is slow for SMEs in particular.” This was stated by Michael BERZ, Policy Officer Key Enabling Technology and Digital Economy of the European Commission, on the occasion of "Watify, digital entrepreneurs tell their story", a comparison between startups and innovative companies held yesterday.
“Watify – explained Berz -, was born from a play on words: What if I..? What would happen if you were an entrepreneur? In Europe, unfortunately, only 6% of aspiring startuppers actually implement their project, compared to the 12% achieved in the United States. The reason is mainly cultural: in Europe we struggle to take on the responsibility that being an entrepreneur entails”.
“Is creating a job better than looking for one?” – there are many reflections that emerged from this second session of the workshop which saw the comparison between young startuppers on the basis of their experiences. Successful experiences but not free from difficulties: if – as mentioned by Berz – entrepreneurship involves a considerable load of responsibility, the risk of failure is part of this not always linear path; however a negative experience can still be re-evaluated as an opportunity for personal growth as well.
The Watify – Stimulating Digital Entrepreneurship European program aims to involve the main opinion leaders of digital innovation and set up special tutoring systems for those who want to develop new businesses or convert existing small and medium-sized businesses to digital processes. The project, strongly desired by the European Commission, is coordinated in Brussels by DigitalEurope and in Italy by ANITEC and will last throughout 2015.
Watify's ambitious goal is to stimulate job creation, promoting the birth of companies with a high technological connotation, on the model of the main global innovative startups, 40 of which have exceeded one billion dollars in value. One target could be to have, in the next few years, 70 new startups, all Made in Europe.
ANITEC has called together startuppers who have developed successful business ideas, entrepreneurs and business angels who invest in innovative companies and opinion leaders in the sector. "The winning recipe of technological startups, as we have seen - declares Francesco Giuffrè, director of Anitec - is to think big and give equal importance to the idea you want to achieve and to its realization and therefore to the team with which you collaborate ”.
“On this approach – he continued – rests the possibility of a feedback from investors, the positive impact on the reference markets and the possibility of creating permanent jobs. It is an extraordinarily dynamic model: three-quarters of technology startups plan to increase their workforce during 2015, and four-fifths believe they will invest more to develop new products (SWG data). Moreover, the perspective is almost never local, but national and supranational".
