Dimensional growth, aggregations, integrated innovation, training, and results measurement. CIM presents seven proposals to ensure continuity of technology investments and support the competitiveness of Italian manufacturing beyond the PNRR. Enrico Pisino, CEO of CIM, explores their content and outlook in the interview published by Industria Italiana.
Seven proposals to guide micro, small, and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises beyond the logic of one-off incentives. Dimensional growth, aggregations, investment orientation, integrated innovation, training, results measurement, and public-private co-investment are the pillars of the National Plan for the Competitiveness of Manufacturing MSMEs developed by CIM with a 2027-2031 horizon.
The goal is to build on the work initiated with the PNRR, linking technology investments to companies’ ability to grow, diversify clients and markets, and strengthen skills. The plan provides for at least 50 million euros annually in stable support for accompanying companies, to which would be added the resources needed for individual measures.
The proposal was presented to the Senate on September 24 in the Paper Measure to Choose. Invest to Grow. It targets companies with potential for development, diversification, or aggregation and envisions a pathway that starts from diagnosing needs and leads to experimentation, training, growth support, and verification of effects.
The plan starts from a concrete problem. A small company can purchase more efficient machinery and continue to depend on a single client. Or it may have skills suited to aerospace without being able to sustain qualification costs. For CIM, therefore, increasing productivity is not enough if the investment does not also enable scaling up the company, entering new supply chains, or expanding the market.
For the entrepreneur, the plan would mean having a stable reference point, reducing the costs of accessing incentives, and receiving technical and financial support toward new markets. The Competence Centers would coordinate the pathway with universities, the chamber system, training, and finance.
“We maintain that innovation should not be a time-limited event, but a continuum,” explains Enrico Pisino. The thought is directed at the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which has enabled reaching thousands of companies, but the potential audience is much broader. Technological support must be accompanied by action on scale: “Only in this way can an impact on manufacturing productivity be achieved.”
Dimensional Growth and Aggregations: Making the Scale-Up Worthwhile
The seven proposals act on three axes: company size, innovation and skills, measurement. For CIM, technology investments produce broader effects when companies can also increase their scale.
A ten-year simulation assumes a 20% increase in productivity per employee in each size class and a 5% increase in employment. Without transitions between classes, value added would grow by 24.8%; by moving 10% of employees from lower classes to the next, by 27.5%. The difference is approximately 7 billion euros. This is an illustrative accounting exercise, not a forecast of the measures’ effect.
The first measure, the Dimensional Growth Pathway, would make national compliance requirements gradual when thresholds are exceeded, where permitted, without modifying the European definition of MSMEs. It provides for an enhanced tax credit on profits reinvested in production capacity, aggregations, and acquisitions, conditional on revenue or employment results in the following three years, and tax interventions on succession and opening of capital. Enrico links tax gradualism to entrepreneurial culture: business continuity is often considered a success in itself, whereas growth over the medium-long term should also be evaluated.
The MSME Aggregation Program, the second proposal, helps prepare merger, acquisition, and capital opening operations. The entrepreneur must know the company’s value and identify compatible partners.
Assessments of productivity, readiness to receive investment, company value, and sector integration opportunities are envisioned. Vouchers would finance confidential analyses conducted by independent and accredited operators. These would be followed by the involvement of private funds, consolidation incentives, and support for verification costs and preparation of industrial plans. Incentives for hiring managers should strengthen planning capacity.
On aggregation, Pisino insists on industrial demand: “It must be enabled by a supply chain leader in a strategic sector where companies find themselves.” He cites Leonardo’s Crescere Insieme as a reference: a supply chain project can give the investment a concrete outlet and make the advantage of collaborating recognizable.
A Single Point of Contact to Integrate Technology, Energy, and Skills
The National Competitiveness Guidance and Support Service, the third proposal, intervenes before the funding application. Simplifying a form is of little use if the company does not know which opportunity to choose. The service would be managed by the Competence Centers with the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy and the Chambers of Commerce, using existing structures.
It provides for a free technical pre-eligibility diagnosis within 30 days, a contact person from assessment to reporting, and uniform required documents. The diagnosis would also measure revenue concentration on the first client and the first supply chain: technological backwardness and commercial dependence require different interventions.
The Integrated Innovation Contract, the fourth proposal, brings together interventions that are currently separate: digital and artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and automation, energy efficiency, training, intellectual property, new supply chains, and industrial qualification. Projects must combine at least three components. The administrative review would be unified, with technical assessment by the Competence Center.
For larger investments, full support would be preceded by a trial in a representative environment and by performance indicators defined in advance. Experimenting before investing serves to verify that the solution addresses the production problem. The paper proposes, for technologically mature projects, starting the pilot within 90 days of positive assessment. For industrial AI, it would also allow costs for computation and model engineering provided by national research organizations.
This is where diversification finds space: applying the same capabilities to multiple supply chains expands clients and markets without dispersing skills. The near-single-client company, however, remains tied to the customer’s plan even when it improves efficiency.
The contract would recognize certification costs, material testing, sample articles, and prequalification verifications. It would also support projects through which a supply chain leader develops suppliers, on one condition: qualifications and skills must be usable with other clients. Financing capabilities that can only be used in the original relationship would reinforce the dependence one seeks to reduce.
Training Linked to Projects, Including for Entrepreneurs and Managers
“MSMEs are hungry for training, but you have to know how to guide them,” observes Pisino.
The Training-Innovation Voucher, the fifth proposal, links learning to a company project. The diagnosis identifies inefficiencies and errors, from which training needs are derived; verification then concerns the improvements achieved.
The voucher would finance courses from 40 to 200 hours at Higher Technical Institutes (ITS Academy), universities, Competence Centers, or accredited bodies. For projects built with a Competence Center, the company would receive up to an additional 30% of the training cost for tutoring, worker replacement, and internal organization: freeing a person from production is part of the cost.
A national catalog would define standards, with a goal of at least 10,000 workers trained by 2029.
Joint pathways for entrepreneurs and managers from multiple companies on industrial planning are also envisioned. Pisino insists on managerial training: diversifying requires reading other markets, evaluating investments, and adapting the organization. The exchange also prepares for aggregations.
Measuring Effects and Rewarding Private Co-Investment
The sixth proposal, the National System for Measuring the Impacts of Digitalization and Transformation, would be entrusted to an independent public entity separate from implementers and beneficiaries, such as Istat.
It would follow companies for at least three years after the intervention, linking administrative data and incentives received. Indicators would include value added per employee, consumption per unit of product, employment quality, exports, new clients, and private capital mobilized. The centers would also be evaluated relative to the initial situation. An annual public report would allow resources to be redirected based on effects, moving beyond counting courses and projects.
“We focus on the concept of co-investment,” Pisino summarizes.
The Financing Proportional to Co-Investment, the seventh measure, provides for the centers a stable public base, industrial contracts, and resources from competitive programs. For every euro of private contract, the Ministry would add 50 cents, within an annual cap and with a share reserved for contracts with micro and small enterprises.
The reference is the German Fraunhofer, which combines institutional funding, industrial contracts, and competitive projects, including public ones. The public base supports knowledge still lacking immediate demand. CIM proposes that by 2031 direct public funding cover at most half of each center’s budget. The share reserved for smaller companies should prevent the pursuit of revenue from rewarding only relationships with large groups.
The Choice on Resources and the Implementation Sequence
Making better use of existing incentives still requires budget choices. The plan proposes at least 50 million annually in stable support for accompaniment, alongside which are the orders of magnitude of individual measures: 300-500 million annually in lower revenue for dimensional growth, 150-250 million annually initially for aggregations, approximately 100 million total in 2027-2029 for training, and 5-8 million annually for measurement. These are programmatic indications: the document requires technical estimates, coverage, and compatibility checks before regulatory translation.
The sequence starts in 2027 with the multi-year framework and the tools for growth, aggregation, and measurement. In 2027-2028, guidance, vouchers, and proportional financing would be activated; in 2029-2031, the integrated contract would come into full operation. Pisino envisions at least a European positioning of the program, consistent with market expansion.
The first decision, however, rests with Italian politics: to ensure continuity of tools after the PNRR and establish which results should justify public support.
