Expert Talks with Alessandra Gruppi: Managing Innovation in SMEs

Daniele: Good morning everyone, my name is Daniele delle Case and this is Expert Talks, the Things5 podcast about technology and smart products with industry experts. Today we have Alessandra Gruppi with us, CEO of the consulting firm Strategia e Controllo, who every day supports companies and business owners in planning strategies and redefining business models. Hi Alessandra, good morning, a pleasure to meet you. How are you?

Alessandra: Good morning. Thank you, good morning everyone. It's always a pleasure to share these food-for-thought ideas, so I'm always happy to take part in this initiative. Thank you so much, Daniele. Ready and at your disposal. I know you have a list of questions, I'm a little scared, but we'll get through it.

The identity of consulting: stepping in at moments of discontinuity

Daniele: I prepared a lot because you're a guest who's really worth listening to and who can bring great value to our podcast. I'd like to start by asking you to tell us what you do day to day and who your typical counterpart is.

Alessandra: For more than 30 years now I've been president and founding partner of a consulting firm that's part of a larger group of consulting companies that support companies' growth, reorganization, efficiency improvement and internationalization. We work alongside companies of different sizes – from SMEs to large enterprises – and we try to step in at what I call moments of discontinuity, because when everything is going well you usually don't need outside help.

In my day-to-day, specifically, I dig into the company's needs: I start from the symptoms to understand what the actual need is. We work on areas of change, digital areas, growth areas. I'm lucky to have colleagues and partners I can discuss things with, and together we try to build an integrated proposal, so that the company receives a solution and not a collection of lots of little pieces. The big problem for companies, often, is having a need without being able to identify exactly what to ask for.

So my bread and butter is understanding, interpreting, designing solutions together with colleagues, and then – something I particularly enjoy – supporting the implementation by staying close to the business owner or the top executive, to help turn the project into a concrete solution.

From theory to the "on-the-job gym": Alessandra Gruppi's path

Daniele: You've given some very interesting insights. But first I'd like to get to know your story, your path. Can you tell us the key steps up to today?

Alessandra: Let's start with the fact that I was a real bookworm: I love studying, reading, digging deeper. In my life I've had two important role models: my mom, who was a seamstress – as a little girl I'd draw clothes for my dolls and she'd make them, and that fascinated me enormously. My grandfather, on the other hand, was a carpenter, and in that case too I was fascinated to see how a drawing could turn into something real.

I studied a lot, but I've always been lucky enough to put things into practice. I graduated in Economics and Banking in 1991 from the University of Udine. I started working shortly before graduating, coordinating a project: a feasibility study for the first renewable energy plan of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region with special autonomous status. As a very young new graduate I was coordinating a team of economics and applied physics professors – they treated me terribly, too, but it toughened me up. I visited a huge number of companies and for me it was like being in an amusement park: I saw with my own eyes what I had studied in books, I understood how organizations work and the impact of human factors on decisions.

I had met Professor Carraro, who later became rector in Venice, and I worked for his consulting firm on various projects. In 1993 a bad accident stopped me just as I was about to leave for Paris – and as happens, everyone is replaceable there, so that opportunity flew away. But as at other moments in my life, one door closes and another opens: I was invited to apply for the MBA in International Business at MIB in Trieste. This was 1995. I won the scholarship – at the time I couldn't have afforded it otherwise – and I attended the program.

After that experience I was lucky enough to work first for Illy in Spain, then for a year in consulting in the United States, with a few forays into Mexico. Then I came back to Italy and in 1999 I founded the firm of which I'm still president, together with an engineer who is still one of my partners today.

At the same time, I went from student to lecturer in Strategic Marketing at the same business school where I had studied. For many years I did a lot of training. Over the last ten years I've focused more on consulting, with training directly in the company – what I call the 'on-the-job gym.'

Daniele: You started from your family experience and showed how important it is to have a stimulating environment around you. What do you bring from your family background into your daily work?

Alessandra: To be honest, I'm the only one in my family with a degree – a very simple family. They tease me every now and then: I've studied so much, university, MBA, passions and so on. What I really brought with me is creativity: the desire to make things concrete, to go from the idea to the result. It's one of the things that still drives me today, from conceiving a strategy to seeing it implemented.

I'm terribly results-oriented. It's something that really drives me in projects.

Daniele: By results-oriented, do you mean you measure yourself on performance?

Alessandra: Sometimes we even work with bonuses tied to results: the word 'consulting' often feels too narrow for me and my colleagues. We go into companies to help them get through moments of discontinuity – I'm practically never in the office. We meet at headquarters when we need to debrief, so as not to bring complexity into the company, trying to pre-process it.

For me, results are those measured against the goal: it could be growth, survival, a generational handover, or business innovation projects that require a change of mindset, often also in internal organizational balances and in people's training. In these cases we define with the client a set of shared indicators at the start of the project.

Daniele: With the client, with whom I imagine you also have an agreement based on results.

Alessandra: Yes, yes. My experience abroad had shaped me a lot because I'd already had the opportunity to work with a performance-based system. It's a model that, when I came back to Italy, I liked bringing home, so a mixed team with the client where the missing skills are integrated. Why should a company turn to a temporary manager? Because they come in, they can stay for a period, it's easier to end the contract when they're no longer useful, and they often bring a breath of change. This model is particularly useful when you want to work on business innovation, market innovation, the development of new technologies, because through our people we're also able to break patterns. In a generational handover, too, you often find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place, between the outgoing and the incoming generation, also trying to mediate. On this front, coming from a quantitative and economic background, over the last 20 years the specializations I've taken have all been in coaching, business coaching, because I understood that the psychological aspects of change are higher hurdles than skills themselves.

Daniele: People in general are afraid of changing their routines.

Alessandra: I remember a lesson from Richard Bandler (NLP): he said that we don't stay in our "comfort zone," but in a "familiar zone." We stay where we know the dynamics, for better or worse. Some people are more inclined to move into the new.

I like working with the business owner who puts their own assets at risk; I'm drawn to that light in their eyes that they have even at 90, that spirit of exploration – even if not everything is certain, they dive in. My job is to make the context easier to read, helping to codify the strategy they have in their head so they can "bring it down to earth" and execute it quickly, also using digital to make execution more efficient. I've never heard a business owner tell me "slow down." The operational excellence of the Considi group, from lean processes to digital and artificial intelligence, comes into play precisely in these contexts.

Daniele: You mentioned your 25 years of experience as a lecturer at MIB. How do you combine the classroom and the company? What do you bring from the company to the classroom and vice versa?

Alessandra: Until a few years ago I did a lot of classroom work, as I was responsible for the Strategic Marketing module of the Executive MBA – the one aimed at a more mature audience. For me it was a gym: in training, just as in consulting, learning goes both ways. It was also an interesting opportunity to identify profiles that could be useful to companies.

In recent years I've been working much more directly in companies. I've kept a wonderful relationship – which has also become an emotional bond – with the management school. When possible, beyond guest talks, we have collaboration projects with the companies we work with: we bring in potential candidates to collaborate or to develop the well-known case studies set in a real business context. And here we are, back from theory to practice – sort of my mantra.

What has always drawn me is seeing a possibility open up in someone. A student fresh out of business school sees things with clear eyes, has that energy, that drive to 'take on the world.' In change projects that's extremely useful as a disruptive element. So we try to pair our consulting support with younger profiles who can then establish themselves in the company once the project is over – which usually lasts from a minimum of six months to two or three years, because we're talking about ongoing support, not handing over a document and letting them get on with it.

Leadership and new generations: the cultural gap in Italy's Northeast

Daniele: Is there anything you feel you've learned from your students in particular and brought back into your working life?

Alessandra: I'm very curious by nature. I've always learned from students, even very young ones: first of all by observing them as potential targets and as buyer personas, understanding how they make decisions and how they approach problems.

The second big area is the digital world. I've always been lucky enough to coordinate people who were better than me at certain things – already in my first jobs at university I coordinated teams of statisticians and econometricians, asking for what I wanted to come out of it without getting my hands on it directly. With a similar approach, I observe young people in the way they approach a new topic. I belong to the old generation that studied vertically: you started a book from the first page and went to the last. Today it doesn't work like that.

Another important thing about behavior: in my day, in leadership, you first proved yourself, then you asked. Now young people ask right away. Or, in my day in the Northeast, the dream was to join a company and wait for retirement. Now young people approach jobs as a stage (do ut des): they already know they'll stay a couple of years until the balance between the experience gained and the contribution given evens out. From this I'm trying to derive a general approach to pass on to companies, because young people can bring flexibility. The real challenge is getting the new and old generations to work together as a system (both in factories and in offices): the older ones have historical knowledge, the younger ones are more open-minded. You need to codify what's good from the past without losing it, so you can then pass it on and put it into practice.

Understanding the soul of a company: the strategic coaching approach

Daniele: Earlier you explained why a business owner should choose an external consultant over their own internal staff. But there's another element I'm curious about: what's your strategy for deeply understanding a company's soul, vision and culture? Do you do it before starting work or also along the way?

Alessandra: First of all, let me reiterate the premise: I greatly admire business owners. Today, more than in the past, because you need courage, being a business owner requires not only ability but also great strength of character and resilience – being able to face change, make even painful decisions, manage emotions.

Given my respect for this mandate, the first thing I do is listen a lot: to what is said and what isn't said. My coaching training helps, because often the verbalized request is different from the real need behind it. I look for surrounding information that helps me interpret.

I've honed the use of techniques that come both from business strategy and from coaching, which help me understand expectations. There's a series of questions I always ask and that I know really 'leave a mark.' For example: let's imagine today is April 14, 2026, and I ask you – Daniele, what will you be doing on April 14, 2035? How old are you, where do you live, what job are you doing? This seemingly trivial question, if backed up by other questions that reinforce it, spontaneously triggers interesting mechanisms. In a generational handover project, it happened that the business owner's son – faced with this question – answered almost instinctively and irritated: 'I'll be living somewhere else with my family.' And so the next question was natural: what's stopping you from planning it now?

The initial phase is essential. And yes, observation continues afterward too: when you present a consulting proposal you talk about assessment, strategy, execution, but during the strategy things emerge that lead you to readjust the assessment, and when you move on to execution you discover a whole other set of elements. The methodological approach we adopt as a philosophy is similar to lean startup: a change project too requires continuous adjustments.

When we're asked for a business plan for a startup, I always say it's not a business plan: it's a support journey for the first year in which we help codify twenty versions of that business plan, because every new piece of information gathered from the market, from customers or from inside becomes learning in the field. Going back to the question of why choose a consultant: because it's faster, they've seen any number of companies. It's like a doctor: you can treat yourself, or someone who comes from outside has already seen other patients with problems like yours, you can go straight to the problem and then you know you'll be rid of it. Very often companies rely on people with over-structured skills. As a consultant, I can be effective when I need to help you get over a hurdle; when instead there's a need to consolidate the strategy for the long term, then an internal person is preferable.

Daniele: How do you check alignment with the company's vision all the way down to the most operational levels of the organization?

Alessandra: Absolutely, there are precise methodologies. In the assessment phases, especially with the most forward-thinking companies, we always suggest doing in-depth interviews at all levels – today, with the tools available, it's feasible.

When I look at a company, large or small, I see it as an almost living organism. When it has to change pace or enter a new market, you need to understand how it's doing, what mood it's in – what's called climate, sentiment or mindset. A company trained for change faces new developments in a completely different way from one used to routine. On this aspect we have people who go deep with specific skills, because you need to be able to build empathy with your counterpart: if you have to work in the factory, you go there with people who speak the language of the factory. This is one of the reasons why I'm against the concept of the 'solo consultant.' Across our network we're talking about hundreds of people who line up according to the needs of the project.

Daniele: In your opinion, is the best business owner the one who's completely immersed in their operational reality, or the one who manages to step back and have a more distant view?

Alessandra: To be a true business owner – the one who senses opportunities and embraces uncertainty – you need to know how to step back. If you're smothered by the day-to-day, you can't do it. The truly good business owner is the one who manages to build an operational machine capable of handling day-to-day operations even without their direct involvement.

And today those are exactly the business owners we need, because we're working with quite a few companies that have to completely redefine their positions in their markets.

Daniele: I remember an interview with Jeff Bezos in which he said he made three decisions a day and that's it, because he spent the rest of his time reading, studying and opening his mind. Few, clear decisions: it's the only way to be truly effective.

Alessandra: In the Northeast, then, there's an additional problem: business owners are often very hands-on and do little networking. Today, instead, business owners have to build relationships, because business is a by-product of them, because it's in that dimension that bonds of trust are created and problems of scale are also solved.

Overcoming internal resistance to change

Daniele: Are there strategies for identifying the internal currents, the resistance or the limits that block a company's evolution or potential?

Alessandra: This is one of the aspects I care about most when we start a project. With the assigned team, right from the start I identify who's in favor of change and who less so – because in the initial phase it's essential not to kill the baby while it's still in the cradle. You need to know how to choose who to put on the team and deliver gradual results so you can then bring the others on board too. A proper mapping is done, confidential of course.

For obstacles there are various tools: personality and skills tests depending on the company, or you observe the dynamics directly during group work. That's where the experience of those in the field comes into play.

Daniele: Should these people be taken off the project?

Alessandra: I always say: if we all agree, the project moves forward but the results will be mediocre. If we keep someone who disagrees on board, that someone can push us to do better. We just need to be careful that whoever is against it doesn't have too much power, or that the share of people against it doesn't become unmanageable – otherwise it can kill the project. The composition of project teams can also be done strategically, because in innovation the biggest ideas are often born from overcoming an obstacle.

One thing I like to do – and here I go back to my youth as a new graduate, when I coordinated economics and applied physics professors who clashed heatedly – is to identify the seeds of change even in highly conflictual meetings. But you need to be careful: if you stay only in the conflict you don't move forward. You need to know how to put certain aspects on a separate experiential track.

Organizational ambidexterity: making efficiency and innovation coexist

Alessandra: It's a topic we organize meetings on – which we call 'management salons.' Organizational ambidexterity concerns those situations in which new business units or projects are created with a business model different from the company's traditional one: you have to make two different logics coexist, that of efficiency – fast, repetitive – and that of exploring the new.

The challenge in companies is always making these two cores coexist. If efficiency alone prevails, the incubated innovative idea gets killed. If only the innovative side prevails, you risk compromising margins. It's quite a challenge, and today technologies can help a lot, if used well.

Daniele: If you had to give advice to a company that has identified some problems but doesn't know where to start, how to prioritize them and how to tackle them, what would you say? Can you give an example of prioritization?

Alessandra: Challenging question. The first thing is to map them. The second is to look at whether we've already solved them in the past and how, because if something is urgent, important and I already know how to solve it, it has to go on a very fast track. If, on the other hand, I have no experience with a certain problem, I'll have to be extremely careful about where it sits on the scale of urgencies.

In coaching there's a technique: if you make a checklist of all the problems to solve, you'll probably feel overwhelmed. If instead you spread them over a period of time, you start to prioritize them both in terms of timing and urgency. We use matrices: we identify the problems, then the possible solutions (already known or to be explored further), then we assign a priority, an urgency, an indicator of how easy they are to solve technically, and finally we assess how strategic they are with respect to the next result. There could be actions that aren't all that relevant in themselves, but that, if carried out, set a good example for everyone and build confidence in the change.

It's not trivial to help a company solve a problem: you need to blend the internal situation, the available resources, the external scenario, and help the company pace its energy as well. It's like preparing to climb a mountain: I need to know how fit you are; if you go too fast at the start you might not make it to the top. And if five of us have to get there, we can't afford to lose three along the way.

The added value of those who do strategy and management consulting is helping to map, divide, narrow down, see what can be delegated and what can't, and estimate the costs of the 'non-solution' because it isn't urgent.

Daniele: I think that's also the value you bring to companies, the ability to choose what can be done first and what later.

Alessandra: Since we're not internal employees, our only goal is to deliver the result – without any possible ulterior motives, as can instead happen with someone on the inside who might be harmed by a change that's positive for the company.

Daniele: In your opinion, what are the main factors that limit or block companies from developing their potential?

Alessandra: Self-referentiality, for better or worse. Companies in our Italian industrial context are often born from the product, from manufacturing, and sometimes they have the 'we do it better disease' – until proven otherwise. This doesn't encourage improvement: if I don't have someone running slightly faster than me, I don't train. In recent years competition has increased so much that it's causing a lot of headaches.

On the other hand, it also happens that companies can't see their own competitive advantages from the outside. In the assessment phases we often identify companies that thought their only advantage was product quality, while from the outside it was clear they had numerous strengths related to service, relationship management, and the way they operate.

This ties back to what we were saying before: the business owner who manages to step back, to have a vision, to build relationships, to compare notes with others, to visit companies in their industry in other countries. We ourselves organize missions abroad – we work a lot on the lean topic with Japan, for example – because visiting a factory helps you understand what's on the other side. Or attending trade fairs you've never been to, with the goal of breathing the air and spending time in new settings.

Daniele: In your opinion, what does it mean to support a company in its innovation processes?

Alessandra: First of all, encouraging it to enter the area of the unknown, starting from the areas where the company has opportunities. Pushing it a bit further, without overdoing it.

The second thing is to make the most of applying what it knows how to do in other contexts too. Innovation isn't necessarily disruptive: sometimes it means doing something differently, or bringing your solution to a completely different market. We're bringing solutions that might have seemed traditional into completely new market segments, where they're delivering significant added value. To me, that's innovation too.

Daniele: What problems does innovation introduce?

Alessandra: The need to create internal ownership: innovation is an activity, not a thought. Implementing it and experimenting with it requires dedicated people in the company.

The second consequence is that it can change the decision-making balance: innovation leads you to look in new directions, and entrenched decision-making balances can be called into question, generating internal conflict – especially in larger companies with so-called organizational silos.

Then there's the issue of risk: innovation can bring higher profits and growth, but it has to be assessed and monitored. That's why I always say: let's set intermediate goals and measure the process. If you get into the process and lead it, you have the chance to redirect it.

Daniele: How do you deal with innovations when they affect economic and relational interests, such as the evolution of the sales network or the introduction of servitization, which changes the dynamics in the distribution chain?

Alessandra: I believe strongly in people as a resource. I always think there's a reason behind every resistance, every apparent hostility.

Starting from the assumption that everyone likes to win, I always suggest first of all giving people the tools to understand. Sometimes we do training to 're-learn,' for example to bring people closer to technology – especially those over fifty, where resistance is more widespread, unless there's been gradual training. Helping the person not just by training them on the tool, but by meeting their difficulty and their resistance halfway, makes a big difference.

In our projects we also include performance management indicators with possible financial rewards tied to the change. First you work on the person and on what exists, then sometimes it's enough to change the working groups by creating teams with a few new people who reset the balance. In some cases, unfortunately, if the company has to go in a precise direction and there's insurmountable resistance, you have to make different kinds of choices.

Daniele: And what about when you end up harming the interests of external companies that have been working with you for decades?

Alessandra: In the Northeast it's a particularly sensitive issue, because on the surface we have lots of SMEs, but in reality we have lots of constellations: business networks and the like.

The first thing is to work on the relationship: instead of imposing change, work as if it were an internal team, help them understand the need. Then, if there's structural resistance to the direction the company wants to take, you need to have the courage to make choices.

This is almost an opportunity right now, with all the talk of reshoring and shortening supply chains. Local roots could once again become a weapon in your favor. Here I'd invest much more in the people-relationship side. When I worked in the United States, one thing struck me a lot: the first thing you did when starting a new project was to clarify the common language – 'What do you mean by?' That is: what do you mean by this word? You agreed on the working language. In the Northeast, everything was taken for granted.

Very often in collaborations – internal ones between people, and also between companies – too many things are taken for granted. Sometimes a simple 'what do you mean by...?' – redefining terms even if we speak the same language and our plants are next door to each other – can make the difference. You give value to a relationship, you codify it, and then you can automate it digitally, leaving people the high-value aspects that go beyond carrying out a task.

Daniele: So you see technology as something that simplifies and speeds up the process?

Alessandra: Absolutely. Technology does those repetitive activities where humans don't add any specific value. If I have to enter data into Excel, it's better for me to analyze that data, think about it and reason about what solutions there might be.

Daniele: Are you referring to creating shared documents?

Alessandra: A glossary too. Once something has been codified and defined, we can automate it – and leave the value-added aspects to the human relationship. Even terms like "quality," "speed," "punctuality."

Daniele: We take it too much for granted that the other person understands what you mean by a word, by a concept.

What servitization is and why it's the new frontier for SMEs

Daniele: I wanted to change topic and get into your specific focus: servitization. Many listeners already know what it is, but others probably know nothing about it. Would you give a brief introduction with clear concepts on what it is and what value it brings?

Alessandra: In the world of strategic marketing, servitization has been talked about for a long time. It's a competitive strategy that tries to differentiate from competition based on price and product by adding the service dimension. Instead of competing solely with my product, I also offer training, maintenance and a whole series of joint activities.

This approach had already led in the past to innovative business models and contract forms – no longer based on transferring ownership of the product, but on the service delivered. The famous Rolls-Royce engines, 'pay per flight hour,' or the photocopier, 'pay per copy.'

Thanks to connectivity and Industry 4.0, these strategies have been enormously strengthened. A connected product can be managed remotely and becomes almost a long arm of the factory. This is opening up incredible opportunities: what was once a labor-intensive strategy – services were delivered by people – can today be guaranteed through technology. The moment I'm connected to my machine, I have information on its usage, I can do remote maintenance, intervene, and the contract model of 'you pay me per hour worked' – robotic station, ton of water treated, meal cooked, washing machine used, calorie of heat delivered – becomes much easier to put into practice.

These strategies also create exit barriers: I like to use the metaphor of marriage. It's harder to separate when there are papers, mortgages, children. Servitization brings with it medium- to long-term contract forms and an almost intimate relationship between supplier and customer, a joint search for solutions to problems.

The financial impact and recurring revenue in the service-led model

Daniele: Does this model also bring important changes from a financial point of view?

Alessandra: A great many. First of all organizational ones: the mechanism whereby I sell and then service makes money when the customer calls for assistance gets turned upside down. Instead, you want service to work proactively and preventively, which creates more opportunities to get to know the customer and offer them other services.

On the financial side there are pros and cons. Traditional sales bring in cash right away, while servitization creates recurring revenue. In terms of business value, a company with recurring revenue is worth more – and in times of market uncertainty you can plan better: if you manage all-inclusive maintenance contracts well, for example, you can also handle peaks and allocate internal resources efficiently.

There are cash needs; you need to know how to do financial planning. Today there are various methodologies, including contract securitization, which lets you unlock future receivables. But you need more sophisticated financial skills than a simple bank loan.

These are medium-term strategies by definition, not short-term: the word itself requires planning. When we start these projects we assess how much the company can afford to tie up gradually, to get past the initial curve, after which recurring revenue starts to fund overall growth.

Daniele: Usually you maintain a transition phase in which you continue with the traditional model while gradually developing the servitized one.

Alessandra: Sometimes special purpose vehicles are even created with specific financial instruments, which maintain an almost arm's-length relationship with the manufacturing company – and which could also be of interest to networks or consortia of several companies in a vertical or horizontal supply chain.

Daniele: What's still holding some companies back from switching to this model?

Alessandra: It's complex. Strategy books say that a strategy is strong when it's hard to imitate – but if it's hard to imitate, it means it's complex to implement. It's not enough to use a contract downloaded from the internet: the real challenge isn't the contract, it's the efficient organization you have to build behind it.

The paradox is that for Italian companies servitization should be ideal: any company will tell you that its product lasts longer than its competitors', it's better made – but it tends to be paid less than it's worth. An oven or a machine with a useful life of ten years under real conditions is the ideal premise for servitization: instead of fighting 'the war of the poor' on price, I engage in a different kind of contract.

Companies are often scared of the financial side (medium- to long-term planning), but in my opinion that's not the main obstacle. The real obstacle is execution.

Daniele: Changing internal processes so they're aligned with customer needs

Alessandra: And then redefining the rules of the game with the sales force and the distribution network.

Daniele: It's precisely on distribution that there's some friction. In the home appliances sector, where most manufacturers go through a distributor before reaching the end customer, how can this model work? Wouldn't it mean 'skipping' the channel?

Alessandra: The crucial point is understanding what going to the end customer means. Let's shift to the software world: there's a parent company and a reseller who installs the license. The parent company has a direct relationship with the end customer for the license, but the reseller still has a role. The change isn't eliminating it: it's transforming its role. The reseller is no longer someone who buys, moves and resells, but a player in the supply chain that brings value – in training, service, and operational support.

Look also at what's happening in the world of boilers and installers: manufacturers provide platforms that become part of the installer's operational process and make their work easier. It's an overall redesign of roles in the supply chain.

Daniele: How do you imagine this model applied to the professional appliances sector?

Alessandra: Here I risk giving spoilers about the solutions we're working on for our clients. I'll answer in general terms.

An interesting aspect of the professional appliances sector is that manufacturers are often structured and customers are unstructured. In servitization strategies, when the product turns from a tool that helps you do your job better into a smart system, that's when the real challenge emerges.

A professional oven that stores cooking times, records the most typical errors and automates procedures helps even a low-skilled operator focus on doing things well. The same goes for an automatic coffee machine: I give an operator a tool to free them from the more manual tasks and allow them to devote themselves to empathy with the customer, listening, nurturing the relationship.

In the professional appliances sector it's extremely interesting both for the unstructured market and for large chains, which at that point need integrated platforms – systems to manage the entire operation, not simple collections of objects. There are already many projects underway on this.

Daniele: What are the enabling software tools for this shift in culture and business model?

Alessandra: I see two types. The first: systems that make service operations as efficient as possible. A company without a system for managing its service can forget about servitization. These systems must provide information on the installed assets: the company that servitizes has to imagine extending the boundaries of its factory all the way to the customer's premises, running a factory with expanded boundaries.

The second type concerns the value-added services created with data: all the information generated in this cyber-physical system – machine, product, operator, external context. If we all eat more sandwiches when it's cold, this information enriches a system that can go as far as automatically ordering raw materials. I call these digital intelligence systems: they give meaning to data by turning it into useful information.

The role of Artificial Intelligence in accelerating execution

Daniele: This is also the change we're seeing with the introduction of artificial intelligence: we're moving from software contributing 20% compared to human intervention to a contribution that can reach 80%, with data already processed and pre-digested. What's your view on AI in this respect in your specific field?

Alessandra: In the last six months I've seen a frightening acceleration. It will be used more and more, but it will take more and more seniority to govern it well: on the one hand to monitor 'hallucinations' – if it isn't guided it's dangerous – and on the other to extract value. Technologies have to be mastered, managed.

Paradoxically, the best results are achieved by senior people, because they know what to ask and then they know how to analyze the answer. The big consulting firms are cutting the junior consultants used to analyze data: that work has already become automatable. Finding the data has become easy; you need to know how to read it.

We always try to transfer these skills inside companies too, including to top executives. When the business owner, initially hostile, starts using these tools and sees what they find – 'look what I discovered!' – they become a tool for accelerating thinking.

Daniele: What areas will be the first to be affected by this innovation?

Alessandra: All areas with repetitive activities. The world of data analysis, of administration, finance and control. The whole world of after-sales service and customer service. And I expect a lot in the design area – in extracting and retrieving relevant data. That entire world will see a profound transformation.

Daniele: We've reached the question we ask everyone, probably one of the most important in the podcast: if you could talk to the Alessandra who was just starting to work, what three pieces of advice would you give her today?

Alessandra: The first: travel and gain international experience. It's extremely important.

The second: build valuable relationships. Human relationships are the ones that in life also help you find your balance again.

The third: accept discontinuity, because it will be more and more frequent. Prepare to change constantly. Don't seek continuity, don't hope that 'it'll pass and go back to the way it was.' Accept that it's part of the game.

Daniele: Alessandra, thank you so much for the time you've given us. It was truly an incredible interview, congratulations. Goodbye to our listeners, and we'll talk at the next Expert Talks.

Alessandra: Thank you.