LOOKING BOLDLY TOWARDS THE FUTURE

Given that Italy is among the leading nations in many aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Serbia is keen to strengthen bilateral cooperation between companies, universities, research institutes and local administrations. And Confindustria Serbia has been contributing to this cause for years

According to the latest Deloitte report (2019), Italy is at the global forefront in many aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the so-called digital revolution. Furthermore, Italian executives fully appreciate digitalisation as being fundamental to their companies’ futures and are looking to adopt and use digital technologies.

According to Eurostat, there are approximately 5,400 high-tech manufacturing companies in Italy, making it one of the top four countries in Europe (along with Germany, the UK and Poland). If all sectors are included – among both services and manufacturing – Italy remains among the top countries.in Europe, with more than 105,000 hightech companies. Italy is also above the European average in terms of the production and use of industrial robots and in the adoption of 4.0 technologies, such as the cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, the Deloitte report states.

Italian companies also invest heavily in scientific and The second one was organised with the participation of Boctechnological research. According to the European Comconi Universityat the Zvezdara Science and Technology Park mission, at €185.4 million, the average annual research and included the presenting of the various possibilities and and development expenditure of Italy’s top R&D spending challenges that digitalisation offers for traditional industries, enterprises is higher than the equivalent EU average of such as production or sales. The third conference covered to €165.8 million. the topic of cyber security, while the fourth addressed 5G,

Italy is ranked seventh worldwide in robotics, just beenabled technologies and similar topics. Conferences now hind giants like China, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. The represent a tradition ofgreat importance for Confindustria, country’s annual production of 6,500 units is expected to as well as an occasion tomeet every autumn and highlight the rise to about 8,500 units by the end of 2020. Although that digital revolution, which encompasses both our private and number is low compared to Germany, which manufactures professional lives. about 20,000 robots annually, Italy still ranks second in Europe, with France and Spain trailing behind, with 4,200 and 3,900 units respectively.

Moreover, Italy is also in the global top ten in terms of robotic intensity: the number of industrial robots compared to the size of the workforce. According to the International Federation of Robotics, Italy has 185 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees, placing it far ahead of Spain, France and the UK.

The same report states that Italyranks sixth worldwide in terms of M2Mcommunication, which is fundamentalto Industry 4.0, and is also advancingpromisingly in cloud computing. Based onEurostat data, cloud technologies havebeen introduced by around 22 per centof Italian companies, which is slightly above of the European average of 21 per cent. Use of the IoT is Confindustria Serbia has These events brought together nualso rising quicklyin Italy, with the sector having more than doubled in three years. Smart meteringand smart car segments r hosted four conferences elated to digitalisation since merous representatives of Serbian and Italian companies, both traditional and innovative IT companies focused on represented Italy’s largest IoT sectors in 2016, focusing on start-ups, digital transformation, as well as EU 2017, withoutput of €980 million and €810 million respectively, followed by smart the digitalisation of experts and representatives of the Serbian government. They also presented buildings (€520 million) and IoT solutions traditional industries, cyber the experiences and expertise of Italian forindustrial logistics. In February 2017, the Italian Ministry security and 5G technologies and other top companies, as well as the good practises of Italian cities that have of Economic Development launched the embraced the smart city approach. Industria 4.0 National Plan (I4.0), as thenew strategy to put The aim of these events was to promote public-private in place horizontalmeasures accessible for all enterprises partnerships and collaborations, as well as to emphasise with the aim of boosting investment in new technologies, the importance of introducing fast-changing technological research and development, thus revitalising the competishifts to the traditional businesses environment. tiveness of Italian companies. It was with this in mind in 2019 that Confindustria

Within such a context, it is no wonder that Italy was among initiated cooperation between the Serbian Ministry of the leading countries in introducing the topic of digitalisation Innovation and Technological Development, and its Italto Serbia. Confindustria Serbia has hosted four conferences ian counterpart, the Ministry for Digitalisation, in order related to digitalisation since 2016, each with different foto strengthen bilateral cooperation between companies, cuses: the first conference was dedicated to start-ups and universities, research institutes and local administrations the establishment of a business environment to sustain them. in Italy and Serbia.