A PORTRAIT OF FUTURE SMES

SMEs will have to face a radical cultural change, leading them to increase their appetite for risk, making technology an enabler of their strategy and their export, opening up to new geographies that have proven to be more responsive to the impact of the pandemic. Furthermore, what is needed is a new and increased focus on shared leadership styles and achieving a better management of gender economy in teams.

These are the main indicators that have come out of the “Future Faber” survey, conducted by the innovation and change management company FutureBerry, commissioned by UniCredit, based on the lessons learned during the Digital&Export Business School 2020.

The educational initiative, which has just ended, organised in partnership with Microsoft, SACE and SIMEST, was aimed at companies, and saw university lecturers, researchers, entrepreneurs, journalists and work sociologists interact with over 3,000 companies in 8 national virtual meetings and 26 in-depth sessions for six months.

“The Digital&Export Business School was a real back to school for us too,” commented Andrea Casini, Co-CEO Commercial Banking Italy. “From the data we analysed, we’ve seen that companies are ready to face the new challenges that the restart phase presents. UniCredit’s mission is to accompany them in their growth, innovation and networking.”

“Digitalisation has taken an important leap forward and even exports have now partially become digital. The direction towards international markets will be another important growth factor: thanks to our solid European presence, we offer unique access to the best products and services in 13 strategic markets and we are supporting Italian excellence also beyond the European borders.”

Find out more about the indicators found in the survey by reading the press release (Available only in Italian).