From agribusiness to aerospace: Campania that innovates

Stop in Naples for the fourth edition of Innovation Days, the event organised by Sole 24 Ore and Confindustria with the contribution of Sistemi Formativi Confindustria and the support of 4.

Cybersecurity as a horizon and in the middle the financing of the NRP, but also the obstacle of bureaucracy and excessively long timescales. Campania is growing and playing the digitalisation card in the two-year period 2023 and 2024 with a focus that exceeds the national average. In between, there are also the resources linked to the NRP, in which companies are placing their trust and are also focusing on training and skills to keep up.

Tracing the scenario in which the digital revolution and transition becomes the main element is the fourth edition of the Innovation Days event, organised by Sole 24 Ore and Confindustria with the contribution of Sistemi Formativi Confindustria and the support of 4.Manager (Main Partner Banca Ifis and Tim, Event Partner Audi, CIRA and Tirreno Power. Institutional Partner Cassa Depositi e Prestiti) .

A growing territory
‘The reality is that of a territory that is growing a lot with really significant peaks of excellence,’ said the editor-in-chief of Sole 24 Ore Fabio Tamburini in his speech, ‘and they are growing more, representing an important surprise. Milan and the north are the engine of the country, but Italy will succeed in growing if the recovery is homogeneous across the country. Naples is making it’.

Suffice it to say that the intensity of investment in the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises ‘is in line with the national average. A significant effort has been made in recent months’. “There is a reality of important investments by SMEs in Naples and Campania,” Tamburini added. “Companies imagine important investments in innovation for 2023 and 2024 for cyber security.

One third of the companies feel fully involved in this journey and 22 per cent that ‘feel they will have a part and will be able to have facilities to fully participate in these development plans’.

Transformation changes business
That digital transformation is changing business radically is underlined by Maurizio Manfellotto, President of Campania Digital Innovation Hub – Rete Confindustria Scarl, who points out that it is ‘changing business radically’. It is no coincidence that he cites the fact that investment in digital opens the way to greater growth than those who have instead chosen only the path of efficiency. In this context, however, as emphasised by Costanzo Jannotti Pecci, President of Unione Industriali Napoli, ‘we need to make good use of resources, and that goes for resources and ecological and digital transition. Enhance human capital’.

A solid base and significant potential
The Campania flagship travels on two tracks that bring together a solid base, with important presences including the aerospace pole with 300 companies and 3 billion in turnover. And then the agri-food industry with 15 billion. List innovative applications on a national scale. And significant potential, as underlined by Cataldo Conte, Head of Corporate Finance Banca Ifis.

‘The study shows that Campania has great potential for growth,’ he said. ‘Thirty-two per cent expect growth against an average of 25, while a percentage of 22 per cent expect to be able to benefit from the resources of the Pnrr’. Again, the way forward is digitalisation, and technology: cloud, cyber security.

The challenges of the new generations
Also travelling in this direction is the programme of companies, now in their second or third generation and taking full advantage of the opportunity offered by digitisation and innovation. This is the view of Alessandro Di Ruocco, Chairman of the Board of Directors of R.D.R. and Chairman of the Young Entrepreneurs Group of Unione Industriali Napoli, who spoke of ‘sustainability in terms of digitalisation’.

Edoardo Imperiale, CEO Campania Digital Innovation Hub – Rete Confindustria Scarl, also took the same view, expressing optimism that there is a Campania ‘with high potential and one that is already powerful’.

Always in the middle is the knot of investment, development, but also security related to a growing sector. It is no coincidence that Antonio Patrone, Tirreno Power’s Director of Finance and Digital Transformation, emphasised that the keys to a future in which the electricity and energy sector is globalised lie in skills and cyber security. Stefania Rinaldi, Managing Director of Rinaldi Group Spa and Vice President of Confindustria Salerno with responsibility for Internationalisation, Training and Generational Transition, also took the same view, seeing digitalisation as the tool “to compete in international markets”.

Innovation that reaches from the private sector to the public sector, and it is no coincidence that Mayor Gaetano Manfredi recalled the “great challenge that is being taken on and the great effort being made in terms of digitalisation, starting with the Municipality’s IT services”.

The Aerospace challenge
Also travelling under the banner of digital, innovation is the Aerospace sector, which in Campania, with its district, occupies second place in the national scenario, a sector that, as emphasised by Antonio Blandini, President of CIRA – Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali, ‘counts 308 companies, and a historical presence of large aerospace companies such as Leonardo.

Not only that, but also accompanying the district is the so-called multiplier effect which, in the words of the president of DAC -Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale della Campania, ‘is one to four. That is, each employee of the 13 thousand employed generates more than 50 thousand other employees’.

Sustainability in the company
In this journey towards the future that characterises Campania’s companies, there is the issue of ecological transition and sustainability, as underlined by Carlo Pontecorvo, Vice President of Unione Industriali Napoli with responsibility for Energy Policies, Ecological Transition, and Environmental Sustainability, who highlighted projects and prospects for companies. But also some critical elements and strengths.

‘For some time now, the vision of companies has changed,’ said Stefano Cuzzilla, President of Federmanager, ‘and we must not forget that the world of finance is also working on this. It is a marked path and all this must be set with a system of compatibility of resources and human resources’.

And this change also includes the activities brought in by companies, as explained by Mariagiovanna Paone, President of the Kiton Group, who illustrated the activities introduced by her group such as corporate welfare or the in-house training school for young people aged between 16 and 21. An eye on strategic projectsWithout forgetting the economic support, as illustrated by Matteo Rusciadelli, Head of Business Relations Centre-South CDP who spoke of the initiative with which ‘a network of 27 physical points where staff reason with local players for particular projects called epochal projects that have a fairly delicate strategic content’ was equipped.

Between connection and transport
There is also a track that links connectivity and transport. Areas in which the exchange of information and data becomes fundamental. It is precisely for this reason that Ivana Borrelli, Head of the 5G Verticals TIM Mobile Mobility Offer with Transport, emphasised the fact that ‘connectivity is a common element, because there is transport and it is necessary to have communication’. Hence the challenge of 5g becoming necessary and strategic for services and projects of the cities of the future.

In this game, exploiting the tools of digitalisation becomes important to, in the words of Umberto De Gregorio, President of the Ente Autonomo Volturno, recover the passengers lost 12-14 years ago “because we were not able to keep up with demand. Today an opportunity can come from the economic resources and investments and the 50 construction sites that are open. Attention to the territories and the synergy that can be created with local decision-makers was placed byRenzo Iorio, CEO FS International – Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, according to whom it is necessary and urgent to ‘put together the infrastructures that are there’.

Genoa model for too much bureaucracy
In this race against time, in which there are plenty of resources available but also too many difficulties dictated by a slow bureaucratic system, Luigi Traettino, President of Confindustria Campania, calls for a Genoa model. “Our Region is the one that has presented the highest percentage of projects,” he said. “There is, however, an issue that needs to be addressed and it concerns time, because to do a public work that exceeds 5 million euro it takes an average of six years. All the proposed interventions exceed 5 million and therefore we are out. That is why the only model I consider is the Genoa model’.