In recent years, especially thanks to innovations introduced to contain the spread of the pandemic, the world of work has undergone profound transformations and companies are now looking for new models that guarantee productivity and work-life balance. Moving in this direction is the general trend of giving more and more space to hybrid work, which was experimented during the lockdown with smart working and has grown over the years thanks to the constant development of new technologies, the mix of face-to-face and remote work now makes it possible to experience all aspects of collective working life even while remaining at home.

MICROSOFT STUDY
According to Microsoft’s latest Work trend index, a new vision of the concept of work is maturing at the employment level, aware of the need to adopt a new scale of priorities. Flexibility and well-being are essential elements in the choices to be made in the professional field, and the new workers are increasingly aware of this. According to 49% of business leaders, the real strategic challenge in the hybrid work era will be the ability to motivate employees. Cloud, mixed reality and artificial intelligence have created a new way of working, and it is precisely through these new tools that companies are experimenting with innovative professional perspectives for their employees.

PNRR AND SUSTAINABILITY
To foster this ongoing work revolution, a great opportunity for the competitiveness of companies is provided by the PNRR funds. Italy, the European nation with the largest funding among the 27 EU states, amounting to more than EUR 191 billion, has the opportunity to invest a significant volume of resources in the digital theme. Enterprises, enticed by the possibilities related to the change taking place, are increasingly aware of the need to take care of the growth of their business as well as the territory in which they operate, generating a positive impact not only economically but also socially and environmentally.
Exploiting digital leverage also means reducing the environmental impact of companies. In order to entice as many economic actors as possible to focus on digital in a sustainable way, companies, academia and highly innovative start-ups are increasingly aiming at a joint development, which through the Open Innovation paradigm will enable them to meet the most urgent environmental and social challenges, spreading the culture of sustainability, both environmentally and socially, fully exploiting the opportunities offered by technological innovation.

CLOUD MODEL
The cloud is not only a technological capability, but also and above all a business model that is changing the structure of entire sectors, also by virtue of a data-driven approach. The Eurostat study ‘Cloud computing – statistics on the use by enterprises’ revealed that enterprises in Europe still tend to be wary of ‘the cloud’, although, as with eCommerce, growth is galloping.
In Europe, the average number of enterprises using cloud technologies in 2020 is 36% (+12% from 2018). Italy ranks 4th with a penetration of around 65%, while data-driven companies grow more than the average in their industry of reference and can look forward to revenue growth of 15 to 25%.
The podium position on the use of cloud technologies belongs to the Nordic countries. In Finland, 75 per cent of companies use cloud services, in Sweden 70 per cent, and in Denmark 67 per cent. On the opposite side and clearly lagging behind in this respect are south-eastern Europe: Greece (17%), Romania (16%) and Bulgaria (11%).

THE PRADA CASE
A significant example of the strategic value of cloud computing is that of the Prada Group, which, with more than 13,000 employees, 635 shops, 23 production plants, and 5 brands (Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s, Car Shoe and Marchesi 1824), represents Made in Italy excellence and a luxury brand known worldwide.
The group has chosen to leverage technology as a distinctive element in customer interaction, data management and the creation of new services, and is redesigning its application infrastructure by setting several objectives: focusing on customer interaction, investing in the digitisation of the production and logistics chain, and enhancing human capital. In particular, it has developed a solid data culture and is investing in the data lake on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, in order to have a single database that can be used by all business applications, with the aim of constantly feeding the information base and simplifying the processing of useful insights to improve productivity, service and customer experience, thanks to increasingly sophisticated predictive and prescriptive algorithms.

SILVER CLOUD
According to data from the European Commission, the silver economy will account for 32% of the EU’s GDP and 38% of its employment in 2025. The demand of older people will therefore be central to Europe’s economic future. This is why the European Union has long emphasised the need for policies and investments targeting the needs of the elderly. Moreover, the elderly population of the coming years will be increasingly wealthy, thanks to savings, and seniors will be willing to pay to concretely improve their quality of life.
Health is certainly the area that is of most interest to economic players, not least because its current development is increasingly linked to technological advancement. The need to provide products on a large scale, as well as the new lifestyle habits of the elderly, have pushed the digital sector to propose new technological solutions that have materialised in the new eHealth sector. The health industry now proposes weareable solutions to monitor vital parameters and help caregivers, develops new software for telemedicine, and applies artificial intelligence to evaluate health data. It seems a paradox, yet an ageing population requires more and more technology to meet the new demands it poses and new ways of working to meet the needs of interconnected seniors.