Start-ups, businesses and communities: the innovation ecosystem

From the birth of a start-up to collaboration with industry and local communities. From access to markets and financial resources to the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence to accelerate innovation in products, services and processes. There are various stages in the journey from idea to market. But innovation often never comes from a single player. Rather, it is the result of interaction between businesses, start-ups, expertise, research, capital and local communities capable of creating the conditions for insights to be transformed into value.

This, and much more, will be discussed on Thursday 5 November in Palermo, hosted by Sicindustria, at the latest event entitled ‘Turning ideas into value. The innovation ecosystem between businesses, start-ups, skills and regions’, which forms part of the roadshow organised by 4.Manager in collaboration with Il Sole 24 Ore, dedicated to ‘Corporate Culture 2026 – Values that create value’. This series of events, which began on 8 July in Turin and will conclude on 15 December in Rome, aims to explore the role of corporate culture as a strategic lever for business growth and the development of the national economy.

At the event in Palermo, experts, start-ups, businesses and stakeholders will analyse the various factors that fuel the innovation ecosystem and the pathways that underpin the development of new entrepreneurial initiatives and the competitive growth of businesses. There will also be an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between innovation, ethics and responsibility, exploring how to manage technological change with a vision that combines progress, a focus on people and a positive impact on society.

Sicily, after all, is an interesting case study, as shown by data from the 4.Manager Observatory, compiled for our newspaper. Almost one in six Sicilian companies – 15.9 per cent to be precise – uses artificial intelligence (the Italia average is 16.4 per cent). Sicily, however, exceeds the national average when it comes to digital infrastructure. 79 per cent of Sicilian businesses purchase cloud services, compared with an Italia average of 75.6 per cent and 71.9 per cent in the South. For intermediate or sophisticated cloud services, the figure stands at 72.1 per cent, compared with 68.1 per cent nationally. 81 per cent of businesses have at least a basic level of digitalisation (Italia: 79.8 per cent): this is the highest figure in the South.

The picture changes, however, when we move from tools to organisation. Only 40.4 per cent of Sicilian businesses use integrated management systems (ERP), compared with the Italian average of 49.5 per cent. 38.9 per cent of businesses analyse their own data, compared with the national figure of 42.7 per cent. In other words, the technology has been purchased but has not yet become part of the way they work.