CASA TOSCANA: A SYNERGIC ACTION
Interview with Giuseppe Bianchi (C.S.M. Manager) |
"In contrast with what we've always thought, innovation is not the sum of a genial eureka and a process of diffusion. On the other hand, it comes from the meeting of parallel stories, following corrections, comparison and negotiation, reduction of uncertainty". (Patrice Flichy, 1996)
It is ascertained by now that innovation is more and more seldom the result of an isolated action and more and more often the expression of a relationship of co-operation among many different individuals. Only through the realisation of relations among people with specific characteristics and competence, it is possible to create innovative solutions which can provide real advantages for the entrepreneurs world. We are obliged to choose to create "nets", that is structures able to link realities which already work for innovation on the territory, creating some new ones where it is necessary.
However, this necessity of linking too often clashes with merely local interests, restraining in this way that work of co-ordination and general advancement which seems to be crucial especially for the promotion and the development of small firms.
Tuscany, from this point of view, so far has too often represented a negative example.
An interesting inversion of tendency is represented by the institution of Consorzio Casa Toscana that was established according to the agreement taken in the Programme for the administration of the innovation in the Tuscan field of of wood, furniture, and furnishing, drawing together the councils of the Regione Toscana, the provinces of Pisa, Pistoia and Siena, several Tuscan towns and Aurelia spa (Parco Scientifico e Tecnologico della Toscana Occidentale) of Pisa, CSM (Centro Sperimentale del Mobile e dell'furnishing) of Poggibonsi and the Agenzia per il Mobile Imbottito of Quarrata.
We asked to the CSM manager, Giuseppe Bianchi, to explain the contents of the agreement.
The programme, aimed to support, to launch again and to renew the furniture production in Tuscany, proposes some complex plans concerned with three main areas of interest: technological innovation, markets / trading, and training.
The first is based on the project Green Home, aimed to the carrying out of products ecologically improving and to the creation of a Regional Trade-Mark of the Environment Quality. The project follows up a pilot experience, carried out with interesting results by CSM and the Dipartimento di Processi e Metodi della Produzione Edilizia of the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, in collaboration with Istituto environment Italia in Milan. It involved ten firms of the area of the Alta Valdelsa in the carrying out of products improving from the ecological point of view, after a check-up of the environment. This experience has recently received the ENEA Endurable Development award, one of the highest signs of international acknowledgement in the environmental field. Directly linked to the Green Home project are also an international design competition called Mobile di Toscana – which represents the evolution on a regional level of the experience carried out successfully for two years by the town hall of Cascina – and the participation of some ecologically concerned firms to the MIA, Mostra Internazionale dell'Artigianato (International Handicrafts Exhibition) of Florence during Spring 2000.
The second area of interest is represented by the project CasToRe - Casa Toscana in Rete (Tuscan House on the Net) – aimed to the application of the new technologies of e-commerce to the furniture production in Tuscany. The services provided by the project mainly interest the interactions of business to business – among producer, supplier and seller – and business to consumer – between producer (or seller) and consumer – processes. The tangible result of the project consists of a series of telematics services of front-office (the virtual shop will enable the visitor to explore the exhibition rooms and to ask for information about the products. The purpose of it all is to attract virtual but also real buyers. The purchasers will be able to ask for furnishing projects and advice to architects / stylists. The sellers and the producers will be able to provide information concerning guarantees and maintenance in the after-market sector) and back office (e-selling; tools to understand the attitudes of consumers, fragmentation and market trends, and the length and the complexity of purchasing procedures; integration of managing systems within the firms).
The third area, finally, is based on the project Forma, aimed to verify the need of training concerning strategic competence and to take up enterprises about this matter. The contents of the project will be in conformity with the intervention lines provided by the development project of the sector Programme. Through this enterprise, training is given the more specific meaning of supporting tool of the local development, aiming to make people learn both the procedures of planning and managing the common services for the PMI, and the acquisition of tools and methods for the analysis and the strategic managing of furniture and wood business.
Apart from the results of the projects, the experience seems to be an innovative example of co-operation among local institutions, universities, Research Structures, and Service Centres for firms, and a model which can obtain interesting results also in other production areas and local realities.
Centro Sperimentale del Mobile e dell'furnishing
Loc. salceto, 99 - 53036 - Poggibonsi - Siena - Italia
Tel. +39/0577937457
Fax +39/0577936297
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Text by:
Gloria Refini |
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in cooperation with:
Elena Granchi
Sonia Morini
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