Le Italian SMEs are still a lot distant in the European ranking for digitization and use of social mediabut a study carried out by The European House Ambrosetti for Meta, reveals that greater digitization would have significant effects on their business and also important repercussions on the economy in terms of GDP and jobs created.
Italy in 18th place in Europe for the digitization of SMEs
Italy suffers a delay compared to the best European performers by overall level of digitization. As is well known, the DESI index places it in 20th place in the EU27, a more or less confirmed position if we consider specifically the digitization of SMEs. The summary indicator called Digital Index PMI created by The European House – Ambrosetti positions the Italian SMEs ranked 18th in Europe by overall level of digitization.
More in detail, Italy’s areas of delay are represented by the size of network infrastructures (23rd place) and of digital skills in businesses (21st place). ). Italy suffers a gap with respect to the European average also in the dimension ofdigital interaction with customers (18th place).
The two areas in which Italian SMEs achieve better results than the European average are, on the other hand, the digitization of business (7th place) and the adoption of digital technologies (7th place).
Social is better: effects on revenue and customer growth
In the most advanced SMEs, the use of social networks and digital channels enables key benefits in terms of increased revenues
number of customers and followers and investment incentives. Social and digital channels have allowed companies to obtain a increase in its revenues with an average value of 20%.
The observable growth in revenues is intrinsically linked to the growth of customer portfolio which is increased by 30%. Social and digital channels also allow SMEs to increase their visibility with the public, with an increase in the number of followers by 40%.
Finally, obtaining the benefits activated by social and digital channels enables growing investments in technology and digital training of employees, with one investment stimulus greater than 60%.
Boom effect on GDP and employment
Greater use of social networks by SMEs can generate important impacts at the system-country level. In essence, the Position Paper estimates that the growth in the use of social networks can produce, in the transformative scenario, up to 10.2 billion euros of additional value added.
Social networks and digital channels also play an important role in supporting employment. The increase in Added Value determined by the achievement of the levels of the current best performers in the use of social networks could lead, in the transformative scenario, to the creation of over 208 thousand additional employees in SMEs.
