Poste Italiane is a centre of excellence when it comes to digital and IT skills. These are the words of CEO Matteo Del Fante, who was among the protagonists of the conference held on 9 September at the Luiss University in Rome, entitled ‘Italia: riprendere il filo della crescita’ (Italy: picking up the thread of growth), organised by Assonime (Associazione fra le Società Italiane per Azioni). The event, centred on the ‘An Economic Policy for Youth’ theme, focused in particular on what was called ‘the new, global, green and digital world’.
The role of young people according to Del Fante
The CEO of Poste Italiane wanted above all to emphasise the importance of the role of young people today: ‘The focus on young people,’ stressed Del Fante in his speech, ‘is the most important theme to develop when picking up the thread of a discourse on growth. Today, we ask ourselves whether there is a conflict between ecological and digital transition and the emergencies that have occurred in recent years: I believe that, here too, we must start with the role of young people. Because, today, the answers we can give on these issues are different from those of yesterday, even though the themes are very similar. Today, we find ourselves in a world where an energy transition is taking place in the medium term (in this sense, I am also thinking of the importance of climate change) and technology is the element we can use to provide meaningful responses to change. We must provide these answers by thinking first of all of young people, striving to respond to the present problems by relying on them, without penalising them.’
Research and development policies
For the CEO of Poste, this means ‘having a stronger focus on research and development. Issues to which many companies today do not pay enough attention. The paradox is that there was more talk about research and development ten years ago than today. This issue is currently less debated. Research and development are fundamental concepts: it is these two elements that, by deploying privileged resources, enable the technological leap forward needed by companies in all sectors. Therefore, the valuable contribution that young people can make to the implementation of research and development policies must be recovered.’
The need for digital skills
The meeting at Luiss then turned to the issue of the behaviour of companies today. More specifically, the question has been raised as to what changes companies have implemented by virtue of certain discontinuities in the market: think, for example (but not only), of the pandemic or the war in Ukraine. CEO Del Fante brought to the attention of the audience the virtuous example of Poste Italiane: ‘Ours is a domestic company,’ he said, ‘so the impacts on logistics were significant for us. We took a chance four years ago, when I arrived and we tried to invest in IT and digital skills, starting from the assumption that the company’s main asset was not so much a physical one, but rather a start-up asset, an asset trusted by retail customers, by those who were changing the way they interacted with services. Poste was to be the reality that was to accompany them in this change. Therefore, both in terms of organisation and recruitment, we have created a hub of important IT and digital skills, which has also allowed us to make a number of significant acquisitions. Generally speaking, in fact, this is a very significant issue: it is no coincidence that, today, there is a shortfall of around 500,000 developers that Italian companies would be happy to hire, but are unable to because there are no adequate training courses. This must be one of the main challenges for the future.’
Above, the TG Poste report.
