According to ISTAT, 32.8% of Italian companies introduced at least one product innovation in the 3-year period 2020-2022. Investment in product innovation is characterized by important dimensional and sectoral dynamics: while in small enterprises investment in new products affects only 30.9% of units, the commitment grows in enterprises in the intermediate range (42.6%) and affects more than half (57.0%) of large enterprises. At the sectoral level, enterprises in Industry in the narrow sense are the most likely to introduce new products (37.7%). This is followed by enterprises in services (32.1%) and construction (20.3%). In industry, electronics (with 2 out of 3 enterprises engaged in product innovation), chemical and pharmaceutical industry, motor vehicle manufacturing and machinery manufacturing are the protagonists of product innovation, all with more than half of enterprises being product innovators. In services, advertising and market research, insurance, research and development, and information technology lead the rankings, recording percentages of more than 50% of firms that have innovated their products. Although there is a significant orientation toward product innovation in some sectors, across the board the tendency to innovate business processes continues to prevail: 53.0% of firms invest in new or substantially improved processes. The orientation toward process innovation also affects small firms (50.2%), grows among mid-range firms (affecting 68.2% of firms) and reaches the highest levels in large firms (79.0%). Process innovators account for more than half of the enterprises in Industry in the strict sense and Services, while they drop to 42.9% in construction. Pharmaceuticals, motor vehicle manufacturing and electronics in industry and insurance and advertising and market research in services represent the most innovative sectors in business processes with more than 75% of firms active on this front.
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