Innovation in Fincantieri

Innovation is an essential component of the Group's competitive advantage on which corporate culture and strategy are based. The Innovation Policy defines the principles underpinning the Company's strategy and guides the actions that will allow Fincantieri to maintain a leadership position in technological innovation in the segments in which it operates.

Beginning in 2021, an Innovation Plan and Innovation Call have been drafted and will be updated regularly. The plan summarizes the results of the market analysis and the Group’s strategic positioning and identifies the priority projects to be developed starting from the following year. The call is the tool the Group uses to communicate its strategy both inside and outside the Group. The Innovation Call aims to stimulate and promote project proposals in line with the Plan guidelines, involving internal and external stakeholders.

Process of defining the innovation plan and the innovation call

According to a logic of Open Innovation, the Innovation Call is open to all actors that make up the innovation ecosystem and it aims to define development roadmaps and joint project ideas that allow common goals to be achieved. The year 2021 coincided with the pilot phase of the initiative: the first Innovation Call contains a mapping of the projects being launched or underway during the year. The Call was disseminated at Group level and external stakeholders were involved during the implementation of the projects. In the future, the Call will also be addressed to universities, suppliers, districts, etc. so that they can actively participate in the implementation of the Plan, through the submission of project proposals or collaboration in projects. The 2022 Innovation Plan was prepared in 2021, indicating topics of strategic interest to be developed and implemented starting in 2022. This Plan is the basis for establishing the scope of the 2022 Innovation Call.

Our innovation strategy is also fuelled by the Technology Scouting process, aimed at analysing emerging technologies in detail, including in sectors other than maritime, and assess their potential impact on our products, services and processes. Our activities in this direction aim to promote a culture of innovation within the Group, but also to support the development of collaborations and partnerships with external stakeholders and strategic players.

Cooperations

To maximize innovative capabilities, we adopt an open working method open to collaborations with other industry and academic actors that can contribute systematically to an enrichment of our expertise. We continuously research and propose collaborations with partners operating upstream in the value chain, or with other stakeholders working to innovate tools, products and services in the segments in which Fincantieri operates. In this regard, we favour long-term relationships through the creation of wide-ranging cooperative development programs. Aware of the significant boost that these can provide, we constantly aim to expand our partnership networks at local and international level.
 
In embracing the Open Innovation model, we take into account a wide range of stakeholders, shown below: 

We strongly believe in the possibility of creating value in a collaborative way and, for this reason, we have developed a dense network of relationships and participations in various regulatory and institutional round tables, both in Italy and in the main countries where the Group operates.