“At national level, it is necessary to support training, introducing tax deductibility of training expenses (i.e. tax credit to facilitate the training of companies in Industry 4.0).” (Business association, South Tyrol)

“Policy makers should generate better investments and research projects, and, in a second step, they should make available more financial resources. In this way, companies can reduce the risk in such projects.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“The provision of an incentive system (e.g. digitalization vouchers, non-repayable loans) is fundamental. These tools are important because companies do not always have the necessary resources to carry out R&D. Therefore, incentives could make it possible for them to approach Industry 4.0 through consultancy companies or to invest in new technologies.” (Business association, Veneto)

“From the point of view of the Tyrolean companies, the low salary structure compared to Germany and also the non-wage labor costs are disadvantageous. In addition, we also find a linguistic problem here – in only a few SMEs English is the company language. That's what makes the integration of international talents only for large companies possible. There is almost nothing left for us to do but to get the enjoyment of leisure and the high quality of life to lure talents to the region. Measures could therefore be to promote challenging task areas in a company and the quality of life here in Tyrol.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“What is needed is to attract more people with IT skills to work here and transform South Tyrol in one of the richest and most modern regions in Europe” (Public agency for business development, South Tyrol)

“The development of proper infrastructures is a precondition for exploiting the trends of digitalization. The related technologies require huge computational power, connectivity and energy, such as 5g and full-fiber networks. […] It would be advisable to accelerate the ICT infrastructure construction projects and extend the broadband to the whole territory more quickly.” (Employment agency, South Tyrol)

“It is important to provide infrastructures so that regions are not depopulated.” (Public agency for business development, Tyrol)

“The policy maker must accelerate the construction of broadband (ultra-fast Internet) making it accessible throughout the territory. This would also favor the spread of ‘smart working’.” (Business association, South Tyrol)

“There is a need for less bureaucracy regarding investments in R&D in a company.” (Public agency for business development, Tyrol)

“We are increasingly moving towards over-regulation. […]. We could be very smart, but we are conditioned by this culture that leads us to regulate everything. We would be great if we did not have to regulate so much. Therefore, deregulation is a fundamental action to be carried out.” (State-owned company, Veneto)

“European Union projects could be better exploited and implemented if they were de-bureaucratized and simplified. Past projects have had good results, but we need to make this tool more accessible to schools and the education system.” (University, South Tyrol)

“A cross-regional, transnational cooperation is today a major bureaucratic challenge (tax complexity), which is difficult. The requirements for companies (tax, legal, IP-attribution) are hindering our efforts a lot, especially in an international context. Legislative framework conditions lag behind and this inhibits entrepreneurial activities. These things must be changed.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“In general, a necessary action is a constant updating of the institutional structure and of the legislative system that make it possible to implement new digital tools in both private and public organizations. One example is a regulatory intervention for the use of Blockchain in the administrative procedure.” (Consortium of municipalities, South Tyrol)

“Specific regulations need to be introduced. They would allow not only to improve the quality of life of people, but also create market opportunities and a higher quality of real estate, thus benefiting the economy and the environment.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“A potential action concerns the promotion of information campaigns aimed at making employees aware of the risks associated with IT tools.” (Municipality, South Tyrol)

“The social side is important in Industry 4.0. There are many who do not trust artificial intelligence. This topic is also about acceptance and awareness building.” (Public agency for business development, Tyrol)

“Above all, companies need to build competencies to tick and then implement technology suitability.” (Private company, South Tyrol)

“Every single user should be informed about specific and concrete benefits it could have from the digitalization. Employees should know what digitalization could do for them. There is nothing worse than to introduce digitalization bureaucratically by force without increase in efficiency or process optimization. This only stigmatizes digitalization. On the other hand, confidence-building is needed.” (Hospital, South Tyrol)

“Companies need high qualified personnel, able to introduce and implement the new technologies, like IoT and machine learning, but also to integrate them with the internal system. They must develop different competencies: not just data scientists, but also people able to develop a proper technology fit.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Companies must learn how to use and exploit all the potentialities offered by virtual communication. Let's take for example Skype. Nowadays, it can be used not only for videoconferences, but also for data sharing. We have to invest in the development of these knowledge and competencies.” (Private company, Veneto)

“Above all, universities and technical colleges should be innovation drivers and trainers for highly qualified personnel.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Educational organizations should develop training courses for new professions, such as data architects and data scientists.” (Private company, South Tyrol)

“Universities must adapt the training offer to the needs of digitalization, introducing new degree courses on digital subjects.” (University, South Tyrol)

“More university areas need to be implemented. This is easier in the technical arena, but other areas – such as math, which could handle AI and data analysis differently – are still very limited.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Right now, education is focused on the accumulation of knowledge without the development of manual skills and experience. It follows that more practical and empirical parts have to be included in the education. The main reason for this is that by experimenting during the early years of school a person learns many things that will help him or her avoid mistakes in the future, mostly at work.” (Chamber of commerce, South Tyrol)

“The alternation between school and work is fundamental. We hope for more interaction between those who educate, are educated and the world of work.” (Business association, Veneto)

“Schools must inform and train teachers of the opportunities offered by distance learning and provide them with support in using the available platforms.” (University, South Tyrol)

“My educational life has shown me that unfortunately the most conservative part was often the one that had to educate me to change. And it is not easy. It is difficult to learn innovation from a person who is not innovative. This obstacle must be overcome.” (State-owned company, Veneto)

“Policy makers should provide more investments in teacher training, making it effectively mandatory. Each teacher at the beginning of the year should outline a personal training plan and then report it at the end. This would result into a more widespread training.” (High school, Veneto)

“If a student is at home, he/she should have the opportunity to follow lessons and be updated remotely. This is an important field to invest.” (High school, Veneto)

“An interesting activity would be the creation of a factory lab to help (high school) students approaching a real digital working environment. This is a project that we are willing to implement in the next future. We would like to buy 3d printing machines, simulators and robots to reproduce such environment.” (High school, Veneto)

“The policy maker should define new and clear guidelines for publishers in terms of innovative learning tools and encourage their use.” (University, South Tyrol)

“Companies need first of all to make intense digitalization investments. After that, they should start processes of rationalization and optimization, aimed at exploiting the technologies.” (Private company, South Tyrol)

“There are investments to be made regarding digitization. Companies should try to anticipate the times and not to follow current trends.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Companies should fully exploit the digitalization opportunities. It is not enough to invest in cloud and IoT solutions to collect and store extensive data, if there is no tool to analyze and understand such data. Let's think to the data on maintenance and repair work. Companies need to invest in intelligent systems to fully exploit these data (e.g. for early detection of defects), instead of using them just to make reports.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“The development of a big picture plays an important role. That is, questioning the purpose of the company: why do we want to be there in three years and what do we want to achieve with it? This requires the courage to re-think processes, to let rid of old processes. Companies need to rethink their roles, including in the organizational structure – such as at board level and redefine all bureaucratic hurdles.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Companies have to introduce new roles in the organization. It would be useful to encourage the introduction of an innovation manager role, a figure with a strong mandate from above, to start on a digital transformation path.” (Business association, Veneto)

“Companies need a cultural change in the company and, in particular: openness to enter into partnerships, agility to implement new methods, strategic partnerships.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Companies have the opportunity to develop new business models. However, this requires a new attitude and mindset.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Certainly, it is important to move everything in the Cloud. In this sense, our culture must change.” (Municipality, Veneto)

“Policy makers can contribute to the system by bringing young people closer to technical and technological subjects.” (Private company, South Tyrol)

“In politics, the necessary skills are often lacking to understand the effects of digitalization. We have some important areas in the political landscape that cannot boast of know-how – they bring old examples such as Airbnb and Uber. I think a stronger understanding of digitalization is necessary.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“The company alone cannot do research and development. This is why it needs to get closer to the University. The difficulty of the company is to invest in the right directions, without losing the few available resources. The University could be the perfect solution.” (State-owned company, Veneto)

“Different companies have different competences and, for this reason, they have to cooperate more. Especially when it gets digital, they need a service competence, they need a hardware competence, a software competence, a data competence, an AI competence, a business model competence. They can be shared through strategic partnerships.” (University, Tyrol)

“Research centers and academic institutions should collaborate with the industry. There is a contradiction here: basic research and what industry needs, the gap is sometimes large.” (Private company, South Tyrol)

“There should be a promotion of collaboration and exchange activities between high schools, research centers and universities, for instance in the field of mechatronics.” (High school, Veneto)

“There must be greater contact between companies and regional/national governments, especially the discussion on certain issues.” (Private company, Tyrol)

“Companies using the same machineries, vehicles or systems could create a network to share and update information and knowledge. For instance, they may create a common platform to upload data on maintenance problems, unexpected failures, human mistakes and so on, and then cooperate to find optimal solutions and improvements that may be useful for everyone.” (State-owned company, South Tyrol)

“Future trans-national collaborations could be fruitful to become aware of best-practices and to share information, in particular on issues regulated at European level. […] We need a control room with political and administrative power aimed at fostering transversal collaborations.” (Consortium of municipalities, South Tyrol)

“Too strong clustering of similar competences across regions should be avoided. Transregional cooperation is the only chance to cover an important role in the long-term.” (Public agency for business development, Tyrol)