How digital companies reacted to the Covid-19 storm

2020 has also posed challenges for the ict supply chain, accelerating migration processes to the cloud, but investments and business support are needed. Assintel data

(Photo: Getty) A strange fate for the companies of the ICT galaxy: in 2020 they had to react to the system shock that the pandemic inflicted on the economy. But, as enabling actors, they also had to accompany other small and medium-sized enterprises in the digital acceleration necessary to react. To put it in the words of Paola Generali, president of Assintel, the demand had to rethink but also the offer had to do it.

However, as the data from Assintel Report Reloaded show, looking at 2021, 58 , 4 percent of member firms are optimistic about business growth forecasts; 33 percent believe that overall the situation will remain unchanged and only 8.6 percent instead feel pessimistic. The report was presented in an interactive and phigital event, live from the international center of digital culture Meet, of which Wired was a media partner.

The year-end forecasts see, according to the surveys conducted by the national association. of Confcommercio, a 27 per cent of companies that are looking at a growth in turnover, a stable 24.7 per cent but also a 47.7 per cent that will inevitably record a contraction.

The presentation of the report, conceived this year as an ever-evolving dynamic platform, represented an opportunity for a more comprehensive reflection on the needs of the world of ICT and digital companies, perhaps not comparable to those of other companies. This is also demonstrated by the data on the appreciation of the government's measures, which are generally considered of little use: 29.6 percent argue that they had no impact at all because they were far from needs; 16.5% reported not having had access; 39.9 yes but only marginally.

It is the demonstration, according to the analysis of the president of Generali, that companies need more, especially in terms of reducing labor costs. Assintel, with the Oltre program, requires institutions to make a total deduction for five years on new hires in the research and development sector without ceiling and lowering the tax wedge of resources already hired. But this is not the only point: it is also suggested to revolutionize the approach to tenders, which must already enable the creation of an ecosystem of supply and demand, and to automate the advance financing of investments by banks to those who award the funds for the tenders.

To reconceive themselves in a phase in which demand is also changing, and where other companies are asking the ict world to dare to offer, the companies in the sector according to the report are investing in research and development, in making processes and financing more efficient, as well as on smart working. However, lobbying and networking will also help digital companies to better understand the requests, provided, according to Generali, not to speak only "among ourselves" but also with all the other existing players.

The opportunities there there is no lack of it, as, as underlined by Fabio Rizzotto, Associate Vice President and Head of Local Research and Consulting at Idc Italy, all the value chains are changing. New opportunities are opening up as new digital ecosystems are being built, not only in companies, but also more generally in cities, in the healthcare world, in e-government, etc.

Hence investments, even those planned for 2021, insist on tech levers that include cloud software, secure connectivity, workforce performance management, data security, etc. The enablers of the new ecosystems, according to IDC, will be the traditional actors of the Ict / Digital ecosystem, but the contribution of startups, communities, fintech, digital agencies, universities, etc. will be increasing. By 2021, therefore, according to Idc forecasts, 80% of companies will have implemented cloud-centric IT migrations at twice the speed of pre-Covid rhythms and by 2023 the transformation of work and operations introduced by the new normal will affect 80% of edge investments. Processes that naturally also require an important infrastructural parity.

(Paola Generali, president of Assintel) Digital as a pivot but the Assintel event has shown that many sectors, which use digital, need not only solutions but also visions to balance advantages and possible side effects: the reference goes to supply chains where the physical factor still counts (catering, hotels, commerce) and more generally to the consequences on the urban fabric of all the movement of multiple activities to the advantage of online dimension

As underlined by the president of Confcommercio Carlo Sangalli, it is important that entrepreneurial capital is integrated, strengthened, innervated by digital, but "certainly not crushed into a crisis that adds insult to injury to be overcome from the giants of the web ".

The digital revolution therefore offers answers but also questions, which call into question politics at national and regional level. The Lombard governor Attilio Fontana, the Venetian Luca Zaia, the Sicilian deputy governor Gaetano Armao and the Emilia councilor for economic development Vincenzo Colla participated remotely at the Assintel phigital event. The importance of structuring networks, of reconstructing a digitally enabled middle class, of investments in knowledge to be spent in the sustainability supply chains, of activation of vouchers for those who do not have devices was therefore discussed.

dynamics between companies, territories, institutions, as well as an acceleration on digital skills, will be able to make a difference: thus collecting the ideas of companies, Assintel asks, in addition to the reduction of labor costs and to finance the redesign of the business, another three points.

The creation of permanent tables at regional and national level, for a comparison aimed at creating a true ecosystem of supply and demand; the complete interoperability of databases to simplify the relationship between companies and public administrations; finally, incentives for Ste (a) m courses by supporting, explains Generali, young people who want to undertake them at an academic level, also by exempting, for example, the initial three-year period and naturally aligning more didactics and business needs.