Welcome2 ® is an integrated, entirely web-based system of organizational business management on all business levels, interconnected with other external realities. It uses technological innovation and techniques of artificial intelligence based on data, in a timely manner, to improve every aspect of business proceedings. It’s set up as a portal configured as an “end to end” management of every activity: it’s a “room with virtual buttons” that allows access to all those interested in a diversified, multi-channel, safe, up-to-date in real time way; always providing available information in its most significant and varied combinations. Through specialized components it carries out the following:

* the optimization and control of work-flow
* organizational interaction between departments involved (client, manager, supplier, etc…)
* the allocation of tasks and of responsibilities of every company resource.

It interfaces and is implementable with other software applications, and can draw or provide data. In an Era of globalization and of competition the analysis of strategic elements of change in a company’s organization must be seen as an internal company optimization and as internal and external synergies. Only a strategy of innovation and integration can allow companies to face the complex and inviting evolution of the now global reality. New challenges must be faced and overcome by any firm, which clearly sees the main and inevitable role of Integrated Information Technology (IIT) in the integrated management of activities and of business. The culture of innovation and optimization isn’t enough if not accompanied by a horizontal operational structure, where everyone is clearly aware of their tasks and handles them transparently (Welcome2), and where the corporate governance function is always able to follow the progress of activities and processes, to turn a traditional company into a “just in time” one. Welcome2 makes communication, information sharing and cooperation elements of immediacy internal and external to a company, and it allows the interpretation of potential market trends, of retrieving and giving value to people and skills within a complex system, and finally of benefitting from the obligation to comply with regulations, as a basis for a rational development and efficiency of the firm, through the definition of individual responsibility (ISO, Ethic code, Safety, environment, etc…) In all this the role with the highest value for business is played by Integrated Information Technology (Welcome2) which by now is to be considered an irreplaceable element for company competition, and which utilizes the virtues of the system to improve and optimize the company’s internal potential.

• “Just in time” integrated management and competitiveness are the real challenge for management, provided they include the strategic relation with business, focusing on the strength generated within a company that cuts the chains of vertical command and frees the power of each resource protecting and highlighting the dignity of responsibility taken on by everyone.

The ability to define the responsibility for each person and to trace the work-flow with objective evidence represents the real factor that generates efficiency and effectiveness of each resource. We can summarize by saying that the actions for remaining and progressing in the market, especially for companies that deal with services, are essentially represented by acting on their own offer to make it competitive to that of competitors, otherwise trying to differ from it, mainly by:

• • Competition strategies that are carried-out mainly by working on the price/quality ratio with operations that intervene on various elements of the value chain (purchasing, production, distribution, sales, etc…), in a way so as to reduce the cost elements and to increase the operational efficiency.
• • Competition strategies based on innovation, which can be specified within the areas identifiable by its offer (type of proposal, functionality, design, quality, fashion and image, etc, which characterizes the product/service offered) concentrating on what can create a differential value in a stronger and better way, as well as of price, on the market compared to the competition.

For the cross-competitive firm company policy isn’t based on technology as a central point or on IT in particular, so much so that often both the systems for the production of goods as well as those for company management are delegated to external suppliers: relocating establishments and subcontracting or outsourcing activities. This means an economic disadvantage compared to an “in-house” management. Technology could be the differentiating tool for the goal of competition, thus becoming a “core-competence” of the firm. The growing need for global “end-to-end” managing systems emerges, so that Heads of IT systems and Managers have the possibility of keeping IIT processes aligned to the needs of business processes, thus rendering IT an implementation factor of these same processes, and finally of the competitive strategies of the company. Regarding the relationship between business and IIT, which can be defined as one of active IT, another of a designative kind is added, autonomous and intelligent (Artificial Intelligence – AI), that identifies and anticipates scenarios for possible choices of innovation, which for such choices becomes not only a driving factor but a generational one. It’s precisely within this ability of interaction and synergy between innovation strategy inside and outside of a company that the game of competitiveness is played. This until a vision where IIT is encapsulated within the product or service offered is reached, becoming itself an innovative function of the offer (Welcome2). The problem rather lies in the true ability of possible change of the top management, of the firm and of innovation, and how much they really want to change and question themselves and open-up to a new company culture. A company structured on a “classic” model with strong managerial structures, where the various departments are handled with rigid “quality” processes is solid and stable in time but surely reluctant to change. Such a structure doesn’t help a management focused on the ideal optimization of performances, which would enable an improvement of the company system on its whole, but which would also entail a strategic and cultural change that would redistribute the individual operative powers.

The understanding by the company that the value of technology can’t depend solely on people and their ability to identify and use resources, of which IIT is one of the most important variables, to delineate a strategy. But in general we can say that IIT is surely seen as a key factor of competitiveness by top management. Always more often interviews to CEOs appear or researches are presented where top management points out the impact of IT on all business areas: as a means for transforming the work place from a physical to a virtual one (in total advantage of finances and of the operative flexibility of the company); as a tool for capturing new trends of demands and so new market spaces and extension of offers; finally as a means (and this is perhaps the most “classical” view) of earnings through recuperating efficiency in processes and operations. An extended integration between business and IIT must be regarded as a priority. It’s true that researches which investigate these issues are mainly of an international character, but it’s just as true that also in Italy the treatment of such topics is increasingly outside of “software” cultures and it reaches the Board Councils with arrogance. Competitive factors attributed to synergies between business and IIT in order of importance are:

• Effectiveness of the company as a whole;
• Cost reduction,
• customer satisfaction,
• greater flexibility and quickness of action
• possibility of access to new clients and markets
• reduction of fixed costs partly changeable into variable costs.
• reduction of invested capital and of risks linked to the investment.

The main point is in what way those responsible of IT systems perceive the new constructive abilities that are expected from them; to what extent are they proactive rather than reactive to the business needs. It might be helpful to have a “Chief IT Officer” able to interpret IIT business processes, who proposes to the CEO the project of the purchase of an IIT operative system (GG tool) needed to support and more so to enable Business processes. The key point is that the change of technology, which relies on the availability of global data, brings a revolution on processes, which will no longer be sculpted (fixed) but re-designable and flexible, also changing the role of the company’s management bringing it to re-examine business processes in a “just in time” way, aligning the company to a changing economy. This evolution follows the pace of competitive pressure, thus it’s so much more rapid in those areas which have changed more because of competition. The new role of the Head of IIT must manage the implementation of technologies in a broader sense as well as having a clear understanding, more than the mere knowledge, of the entire “end to end” management system that links and articulates strategic concepts with their IIT operational implementation. (GG).

Luigi Campoli
a.d. D.E.C.A.SPA