To thrive and to grow, a business must innovate. Innovation is no longer anything new in business, and it now comes in many different forms, all of which, however, are faced with the same restrictions: the need for a skilled business leader; the context within which the business operates; and the outlook for the industry in question. In other words, innovating is no easy task for small and medium enterprise, especially in Italy, but it is nonetheless a necessity.<\/p>\n
In order to better understand all that can happen, it may be interesting to read \u201cNuovi modelli imprenditoriali, tendenze e politiche di sostegno\u201d (New business models, trends and support policies), an article written by Donato Iacobucci (an associate professor in the Department of Automation and Management Information Systems at Universit\u00e0 Politecnica delle Marche) that takes a closer look at what has happened to the manufacturing industry in the Marche region of Italy in recent years.<\/p>\n
In particular, the study (which appeared a few weeks ago in Prisma Economia Societ\u00e0 Lavoro) analyses the situation that has arisen in the economy of the Marche region following the international crisis of 2009 and the consequent recession that has afflicted Italy over the last three years.<\/p>\n
Manufacturing in this region has been hit harder than the national average. The author blames this on the region\u2019s particular model of specialisation and consequent model of innovation, which shows a distinct lack of research. In other words, the underlying idea is that the businesses of the Marche region have, indeed, reacted to the crisis with innovation, but this innovation has not been based on research. In a certain sense, innovation has been handicapped and left excessively fragile and exposed to the blowing winds of the crisis.<\/p>\n
From this, we find two obstacles that the author has transformed into recommendations. In Iacobucci\u2019s view, it is important to promote the launch of new business that takes greater advantage of knowledge, businesses that would then be able to help bring diversity to the economy and drive greater innovation among existing businesses. This is crucial for the region\u2019s future, but it can only be achieved by also changing the models of \u201centrepreneurial activation\u201d. In other words, what is needed once again is a qualitative shift in the minds of enterprise and in corporate culture that is not always easy to achieve. The second obstacle\/recommendation concerns the need to help young entrepreneurs to create new enterprises, this already rocky road is made more challenging by another obstacle to development that is all too typical in Italy, that of coming up with adequate funding.<\/p>\n
This short, intense article by Iacobucci starts from a real-life situation, which is then analysed with a good dose of theory and is most certainly to be read with great care.<\/p>