Results benchmarking study digitization of operations of Italian companies

Digital transformation, within the Industry 4.0 framework, represents not only an opportunity but a genuine necessity for companies that want to compete with increasingly innovative products and services that deliver value to customers. Digitalization must therefore encompass the digitalization of processes, products, and services.

This has now become a key issue for all companies across all industrial and non-industrial sectors.

The impact and speed of this transformation depend on:

• internal and external context
• on strategy
• on investment
• on engagement

Basic success is founded on a solid plan for all the factors at play.

The benchmarking study "What’s Next in Operations?", designed and launched by our Knowledge Office to measure the maturity level of Italian companies with regard to Digital Transformation, Sustainability, and Operational Excellence, captured the current state of the art and key best practices in Operations, with a focus on human resources as well.

The study involved top managers from over 100 companies, 85% of which were % companies with more than 100 employees operating in 22 different sectors, ranging from plant engineering to metalworking, from consumer goods to automotive, and from life sciences to electronics and packaging.

The questions focused on three key areas:

• operational excellence (processes for generating, producing, and delivering value to customers)
• digital transformation (technologies to create new value for customers and economic returns for the company)
• sustainability (environment and people).

Highlights

• The research results show that the sample of companies surveyed demonstrated substantial growth during the post-COVID three-year period of 2020–2023 in terms of key indicators such as revenue, employees, and, above all, market share.
• Companies in the sample reported their level of digitalization as low in 36%, good in 51%, and only 9% as high and 4% as very high. This trend does not vary significantly based on company size in terms of number of employees
• Processes have been digitized for over 40% of the sample analyzed, and digitization has been planned for over 60%. At the same time, dashboards to track KPIs have been implemented and are being planned. Digital transformation, therefore, primarily involves the adoption of essentially "non-innovative“ management systems such as ERP and MES.
  Big Data has been implemented in only 12% of the sample analyzed, but nearly 28% of the sample analyzed has planned its implementation.
• The percentage of revenue allocated to investments in process digitization appears limited. In fact, over 69% of the companies in the sample invest less than 5% of their revenue in these strategic projects, and in the future, investment budgets will remain unchanged or grow slightly for 86% of the companies surveyed.

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