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Leading the future with Osservatori Digital Innovation

This year marks the 3rd year in a row for LARUS sponsoring Osservatorio Big Data & Business Analytics and the 2nd year sponsoring Osservatorio Artificial Intelligence. Today’s digital transformation makes it necessary to keep your expertise trained and sharp in order to stay competitive in the long run and up-to-date with market trends and needs. Our participation thus confirms our commitment to research and innovation.

The Politecnico di Milano is one of the most prestigious universities in Italy. It is recognised internationally for its excellence in research and education. The Digital Innovation Observatories are research centres within Politecnico. They focus on the study and analysis of digital technologies and their impact on business and society. The initiative was born with the aim of promoting culture in all the areas of digital innovation and now indeed represents a qualified point of reference in Italy.

The power of high level networking in understanding the market needs

The Observatories bring together the leading companies in the industry to monitor and analyse market changes, identify new opportunities, and share best practices. Our involvement in this project enables us to have a broader and more comprehensive view of the business landscape. This is crucial to better understand the needs of our clients and partners.

The central role of synergies in innovation

LARUS’ expertise in data management and analysis, as well as in the field of explainable AI, makes us the perfect partner for the Observatories. Indeed, we provide the technical knowledge and experience necessary to support their research and analysis activities.

At the same time, with the help of the wide range of data and information, the Observatories inform us on market trends, consumer behaviours, and regulatory and legislative changes. This enables us to develop the most innovative customised solutions for our costumers. By participating, we can thus meet their needs efficiently and effectively.

As partner in this initiative, we participate in workshops and meetings with other project members, sharing ideas and best practices. This allows us to support our industry colleagues while also learning from them. In this way we can create synergies to develop brand new solutions.

We are proud to renew our commitment in 2023 with the aim of spreading innovation in Italy.

An overview of Italian companies in 2022 

Last year was rich in workshops, webinars, meetings and conferences with fellow partners and participants of both the Osservatorio Big Data & Business Analytics and the Osservatorio Artificial Intelligence. Let’s see how the Italian companies resulted from the research conducted in 2022.

2022 Osservatorio Big Data & Business Analytics

2022 edition was focused on monitoring Italian enterprises and SME maturity on Data & Analytics while better understanding international related trends. A wide field of research consisted in investigating Analytics applications on different industries and processes. For this reason, it was necessary to estimate the dissemination of skills and organisational models linked to Data Science e Data Governance while evaluating the impact of technological developments.

In 2022 they recorded a positive trend in all industries, but GDO & Retail, Public Administration & Healthcare registered the major growth. Generally speaking, the Italian companies expenditure for resources related to Data management and analytics registered the +20% expected augmentation, reaching 2.411 billion euro. 

This is a translation of the material originally produced in Italian

The 54% of the total expenditure referred to softwares: +34% for Data ingestion and processing, +33% for Data Science & AI Platforms, +30% for Data Visualisation and Reporting, +27% for Data Governance Platforms.

Italian companies maturity in Big Data & Business Analytics

This is a translation of the material originally produced in Italian

The Observatory analysed Italian companies on the basis of a Maturity index that includes 3 key factors:

  • Business Intelligence e Descriptive Analytics (basic tools and skills for a pervading Business Intelligence);
  • Data Management & Architecture (tools, skills and processes for technological management, data integration and information asset governance);
  • Data Science (applications, tools and skills for predictive analyses and optimisation from data analytics and Intelligent Automation). 

15% of enterprises resulted advanced but can still improve in terms of executive roles in leading strategies of data evaluation. 30% resulted as proactive since they already have gained experience in Advanced Analytics but still lack the information asset management. 22% resulted as cautious since they are just approaching Data Science but they already have good quality data at their disposal. 18% resulted as immature and 15% as in early stages. Their priority is still to strengthen their Business Intelligence activity. They also need a pervasive introduction to Data Visualization & Advanced Reporting tools.

2022/23 Osservatorio Artificial Intelligence

2022 looked like the actual starting point for the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in Italy. Despite a complex international environment, the Italian AI market reports record-high growth rate compared to previous years of investigation. Large companies reportedly begin to adopt the latest technologies and skills to develop AI projects. SMEs and small businesses also record a significant positive growth rate in this field.

AI Research goal was to produce and spread knowledge on the opportunities and impacts the Artificial Intelligence has over businesses, public administrations and citizens.

Speaking on a more international level, this has been the year of new impressive products releases. We are speaking of course about DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT which pushed ahead the debate about Generative AI.

Italian companies maturity in Artificial Intelligence

2022/23 AI Research focused on evaluating Italian Enterprises and SMEs level of maturity, identifying their direction, projects and expenditure dynamics. It also analysed consumers’ point of view towards AI, leading to a deeper discussion about ethical implications. To evaluate how much they are AI-ready, the researchers analysed organisations’ information assets, methodologies and AI algorithms, organisation and skills, corporate culture, and customer relations.

9% of companies resulted as avant-gardist, since they have at their disposal the technology and skills to fully implement successful AI initiatives. 25% resulted as apprentices, since they have the technology but they need to strengthen their skills to implement AI initiatives. 33% resulted as on the way because they’ve started having at their disposal technologies and skills to develop AI projects. 19% resulted as enthusiastic since they start having at their disposal the technology to start experimenting with AI. 14% resulted as late because they still don’t have at their disposal the levers required for AI.

This is a translation of the material originally produced in Italian

Great challenges ahead

2023 Osservatorio Big Data & Business Analytics

This edition still aims to represent a point of contact between private businesses, public bodies and third sector. For this reason it keeps focusing on Business Intelligence, Data Management & Architecture, and Data Science.

Research activities will be carried out through a constant updating on technologies, applications and organisational challenges. It will count on the most recent literature on the topic but also on surveys addressed to Enterprises and SME. These will be fundamental in order to investigate the market. It will be crucial to consider the adoption rate of technologies and skills for what concerns Data Management and Analytics.

The investigation will also be enriched by the analysis of outstanding projects and targeted interviews. The identification of technological trends within the startup ecosystem will also be a core factor leading the research activities.

The goals for such research are not only linked to the monitoring of enterprises and SME maturity in terms of Data & Analytics: it will also provide a better understanding of the impacts that international and national trends, technological advances and analytics applications have on the business.

A clearer estimation of the spread of skills and organisational models in the field of Data Science e Data Governance will also lead to a wider and more accurate point of view over the whole Big Data industry.

2023/24 Osservatorio Artificial Intelligence

This year edition will focus on a better understanding of the current AI deployment. This includes a clearer idea of the adoption of AI solutions, sectors and processes involved, but also drivers, obstacles and benefits of projects already launched. 

The research on AI will monitor the evolution of the regulatory framework. The European context will be deeply analysed, especially with regards to AI ethical challenges. 

There will be a major focus on organisational changes, in terms of new professional profiles and their skills and duties over project governance. In this respect, the research will also focus on the general impacts of AI over the world of work. We are talking about job polarisation, skill mismatch, human-machine interaction and degree of automation. 

Consumers’ point of view about AI will then represent a key point of discussion. A better understanding of their level of knowledge and acceptance is a key point when evaluating the adoption of services and solutions enabled by AI.

Conclusion

This overall partnership reflects LARUS support to research and innovation, a key element of our own growth strategy. In light of all of the above, we confirm again our commitment to the development of both Big Data and AI fields to better answer the increasing interest of public and private organisations towards new technologies and methodologies. We will continue to work hard to stay ahead of market changes and to provide ground-breaking and customised solutions to our clients.

And above all, we are happy to support such initiatives and to have the chance to play such strategic role in the Italian digital and technological panorama.