Italian companies between good and bad communication.
Who better than an entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in communication could inaugurate the new Notorious People strand? A new editorial line involving entrepreneurs, marketers and top international communication experts.
We know that communication plays a key role in society: it breathes life into companies, generates new business, drives innovations that are destined to involve (and sometimes disrupt) the entire community. And we, every day, in our professional role, have the opportunity to engage directly with entrepreneurs and marketing directors of all kinds, in the most diverse sectors.
With them, with you, we want to talk about good and bad communication, analyse real cases, discover new opportunities, seek new points of view.
Professional communication is a stormy sea, a territory where the rules are constantly changing, where falling into mediocrity is extremely easy. But not permissible, especially at a time when one mistake can result in the destruction of a brand. We want to free ourselves from the commercial and pretentious approach that has generated a swarm of articles offering the ‘recipe for perfect communication’.
We did not ask Gianni Potti if there is a recipe for dealing correctly with investments in communication. President CNCT Confindustria Innovative and Technological Services; Managing Director ‘Industry 4.0, innovation and research’ of Confindustria Veneto; President of Fondazione Comunica; Co-founder of Talent Garden Padova.
Gianni Potti’s experience touches companies and politics, established entrepreneurs and young recruits. Here is his vision, in the context of a digitalisation journey that is far from over.
What are the opportunities that entrepreneurs should seize to properly invest in communication?
In a general overdose of communication, one must first distinguish between good and bad communication. Good communication pays attention to trends and understands where to hit. Analysing and anticipating these trends is the first step in understanding where to invest and get back on track.
During my formative years there was a rule that a company had to invest at least 10% in communication. Today, few do, clearly the cuts due to the crisis have had a huge influence. The situation we are in is therefore anti-cyclical: if communication leads to expansion, non-communication leads to contraction. The first step for every company is therefore to identify the right priorities.
Is it really possible for Italian companies to take an omnichannel approach to communication strategies? Or are few able to afford it?
In order to talk about omnichanneling, it is first necessary to address an essential step: moving companies from analogue to digital. In a process like this ‘you go analogue and you go digital’. We communication professionals can do this in various ways: by sharing our know-how through Digital Meetings (the next Digital Meet is scheduled for 19 to 22 October 2017, ed.), by creating seminars, by educating our clients. It is an ongoing investment that is not only aimed at companies, but also at the public, which needs to be digitised so that a real dialogue is generated between the parties.
We at Fondazione Comunica, for example, also create training ‘in pills’ to encourage the digitisation of a very large segment of users who are lagging behind. Not only the older generations: the phenomenon also concerns many young people, who do not even know how to use a smartphone. Today, this group is precluded from accessing information or utilities. For companies, this translates into a large pool of potential customers that become impossible to intercept.
La comunicazione aziendale produce innovazione?
The digital divide that we are facing, and which absolutely must be bridged, is also cultural and is really wide. The role of companies is not only to expect immediate results. We are at a time when this gap still needs to be bridged. Every communication action is also an opportunity to raise awareness and educate one’s audience in the digitalisation process.
If you were 20 years old today, how would you choose to start your career in the world of communication?
If I was 20 years old right now I would go and work in a co-working environment. When we founded Talent Garden we were pioneers and, as it was conceived, it is more than just sharing spaces: it is the possibility of creating long-range dialogue. Suffice it to say that 18 campuses have been opened across Europe and that these environments involve almost 2000 people. The incredible value given to this is the idea that 1+1 must make 3, not 2!
Under the name ‘communication agency’ there are also very different realities. What characteristics should the ideal partner for companies have?
In the communication sector, know-how is valuable, often very specific, and people are not willing to hand it over. Only a company that integrates know-how and experience is able to support companies and manage professional projects.
What is the attitude of Italian entrepreneurs towards professional communication?
There are different types of entrepreneurs, but mainly we can divide them into two: those who look for new ideas and are willing to believe in them, and those who only look at price, essentially generating a race to the bottom. Often this category of entrepreneurs believes that they can manage communication processes effectively without professional support.
So maybe they attend a course, take some notes, bring them into the company and entrust the management of new activities to a semi-professional or a non-specialised insider. This is because professionalism in the communications sector today is still not fully recognised.
Among Italian companies, there are those that have been able to reinvent themselves, reposition themselves and open up to new business, those that continue to stall, especially due to objective suffering. How do you read the phenomenon?
Currently, the situation sees three groups of players. Forty per cent of companies, which we can consider ‘hares’, are structured and have long since embraced digital, investing in it and learning the benefits it can bring. Then there is another 40 per cent of companies that would have all the credentials to invest, but it is as if they were in the middle of a river to cross: they are not yet fully evolving because the necessary generational change has not yet taken place at company level.
The remaining 20 per cent, on the other hand, are suffering greatly: it is impossible for these companies to embark on a path that includes more strategic and structured digital communication. Without managerialism, there is no innovation.
Could politics play a decisive role in supporting investments in communication and digitisation?
Banks are no longer a partner for companies, so yes, politics should intervene seriously. For 2018, for example, there is the 250% super depreciation on investments in communication that exceed those of the current year by at least 1%. But it only focuses on investments in new technologies, as if they were the only ones needed to generate growth. Technological and non-technological apsects imply a necessary set of upstream skill acquisition paths. The real challenge for growth is to bring together the technological aspect, the training aspect and business credit.
What is the state of E-commerce, at the end of 2017, for Italian companies?
In Italy, there are still several gaps related to E-commerce. E-commerce has to be seen as a business, with new figures within it, such as the store manager who actually has to manage a warehouse. There also seems to be a big difference between north and south: the south seems more willing and interested in learning E-commerce know-how.
The north, on the other hand, appears more closed due to an entrepreneurial mentality that tends towards ‘do-it-yourself’: through meetings and training courses, the entrepreneur goes about acquiring skills only in a superficial manner, believing that he can manage and process information internally and invest derisory budgets in marketing. Instead, there is a need for organised structures and trained professionals who know how to manage these processes: the world needs professionalism and, unfortunately, our entrepreneurs often forget this.
