Pnrr, young people on the run, technology: the map of challenges for studies

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There are two great challenges facing professional studios. The first is the ability to attract and retain young people fleeing the professions, the other is to seize the opportunities of the Pnrr, strengthening the role of supporting businesses in implementing the recovery and resilience plan. This is also highlighted by the latest report of the Professional Observatory and digital innovation of the Milan Polytechnic presented on June 4, 2023. .

Less than half of the studios have a website

At first glance, from above, both challenges seem difficult to achieve: less than half of the Italian firms of accountants, lawyers and labor consultants have a website; the average of investments in technologies for these categories remains below 10 thousand euros per year (with the exception of multidisciplinary realities). Among small firms, one in four faces a 10% drop in profitability (35% for microstudies). And among everyone there is a fear of not being able to find young talent to face the generational transition.

Better large studios and multidisciplinary ones

But underneath this surface the reality is much more jagged and dynamic. «Large and multidisciplinary studios have already taken the fast lane», summarizes Claudio Rorato, scientific director and head of the Observatory (for research purposes, studios that have over 30 employees and collaborators are considered large, ed). The gap between these and the small and medium-sized companies (which, however, are in the majority) is ever wider: «The big ones have by now internalized the digital culture – continues Rorato -, they see new technologies as allies and not as a cost and have launched processes of change”.

The little ones

Processes that still do not affect the majority of small businesses, who “struggle to intercept change, remain anchored to neighborhood customers and can invest little in technology”, summarizes the director. And given the preponderant weight of children also in the Polimi statistical sample, based on about 4 thousand studies, the substantial static nature of the average results can be explained.

The technologies

2022 was essentially a year of waiting so that investments in new technologies remained stable: +0.4% compared to 2021. But multidisciplinary companies spent an average of 25 thousand euros, while lawyers only 9 thousand.
The research adds: «The micro-studies – transversal to all the categories examined – are of particular concern, which in 63% of cases do not exceed 3,000 euros of annual investments in technology». This exposes them to fragility because «they remain focused on traditional and generalist services, subject to price competition, and the market perceives them as undifferentiated». The prospects for the current year are better for everyone, with a 7% growth in spending forecasts. «In these years of pandemic, inflation and energy shock, studios have had to limit expenses, also because they have acted as a substantial “cash” for customers, giving up punctual collections», adds Rorato. But the choice of technologies in which to invest is also worrying, largely guided by legal obligations (electronic invoicing and digital preservation, for example, as also shown by the graphics on the page). Covid has brought videoconferencing almost everywhere. But not the website (on average in 40% of studies). Not to mention more advanced tools such as artificial intelligence and chatbots, which remain niche: nine out of ten studies do not think of introducing them even in the future. “In reality, even before AI, professionals should develop a project with the enormous amount of data they have always had at their disposal – observes Rorato -, because they are sitting on a treasure and they don’t know it”.