The Monthly Statistical Bulletin of the Municipality of Florence (June 2017) is online and contains the results of the survey conducted within the Speed Up and Pure Cosmos projects, co-financed Interreg Europe program. 

The activity has been commissioned to the Statistics Service by the Economic Activities and Tourism Department of the City of Florence; the realization of the survey was also possible thanks to the support of the Statistics and studies Office of the Chamber of Commerce in Florence that was adapting the questionnaire to the Florentine reality and providing mail addresses of enterprises.

 

The online survey, conducted from 28 November 2016 to 31 January 2017, has involved 30,794 Florentine companies, invited to express their opinion on how to improve the relationship with the public administration, in order to be more equipped and become innovative and competitive in the local, regional, national and international market.

The goal was to actively involve businesses in the process of administrative simplification, to make processes more essential, by implementing a total and uniform reduction in administrative burdens, allowing access to information and data, identifying and eliminating financial obstacles.

Based on the identified issues and the proposals emerged from the investigation, the next step of the Pure Cosmos project will determine what are the good practices to take to overcome obstacles and address specific challenges with other European project partners.

The companies involved in the survey were those with less than 250 Employees registered with the Chamber of Commerce. The data presented here is the result of 2,730 complete questionnaires (rate of equivalent to about 9%).

 

The analysis was organized in five parts:

1. General information about small and medium-sized businesses,

2. Information on business capability,

3. Obstacles encountered by companies,

4. Possible solutions and,

5. Analysis of the relationship between businesses and public entities.

 

The Small and Medium Business (SMEs) sample is made up of

• Micro Enterprises (1-9 employees)-(80.3%),

• Small businesses (10-49 employees)-(12.3%) and

• Medium sized enterprises (50-249 employees)-(2.2%).

 

19.5% of companies have been born for less than 48 months. Among them, 18.2% are innovative companies.

 

51.9% of companies claim to provide their products or services “directly to consumers in our country" and 47.9% to "Small and Medium-sized enterprises".

The issues that most hinder firms in achieving of success are linked to "General Economic Trend" (mentioned from 68.3% of the sample), to "Taxation" (64.0%) and to "Bureaucracy"(40.3%).

 

In order to remain competitive and continue to survive in a global market, more than one company out of two has indicated "the increase of turnover" as action/strategy to be taken to be able to aspire to one long-term growth, followed by the need to "seek new channels"(36.6%). Limited financial resources, bureaucracy and the lack of time are however the three aspects inside the company that make it difficult to achieve these goals. Also, more than a company on four is unable to find a solution.

 

30% of sample companies claim to have provided services or products to the Public Authorities by pointing to difficulties related to the "Regulatory/Legislation/Bureaucracy"(57.1%) and the "Procurement and Procedures of Contract"(49.8%) considered too burdensome in terms of time and little understandable. The main reason for the companies which, instead, say they do not have a relationship with public institutions is because "Services or products are not interesting for this type of market"(As stated by 46.7% of the sample).

 

You can find the complete Italian report here.