Digitization in Italy

For some years now, the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) has been used to evaluate and compare the level of digitization of the European Union and to know the gap. The DESI is an index introduced by the European Commission in 2014 to measure the progress of European countries in terms of digitization of the economy and society, in order to converge towards a single digital market.

The indicators used to represent the DESI are:

1. Human Capital: measures the skills necessary to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the digital society;
2. Connectivity: measures the development of broadband, its quality and the access made by the various stakeholders;
3. Integration of digital technologies: measures the digitization of businesses and the use of online sales channels;
4. Digital Public Services: measures the digitalization of the PA, with a focus on eGovernment.

Each of these four dimensions contains different indicators collected and weighted according to their relevance. 33 indicators were used in the DESI 2021 Report. To aggregate indicators expressed in different units of measurement, a normalization is made between 0 and 100. And it is in this way that it is possible to have an average measure for each dimension and an overall measure, which briefly reports the implementation status of the Digital Agenda.

According to the report, Italy is 20th in terms of overall digitization, a position less than the previous year which places Italy in the lower part of the ranking, far from countries such as Spain, France and Germany. The report on Italy is very harsh on two aspects: Human Capital and Connectivity.

Human capital has been the true Italian Achilles heel since the birth of DESI. In particular:

• We are third last in Europe for population with at least basic digital skills (42%), against an EU average of 56%, and fourth last for advanced digital skills (22%), against an EU average of 31%;
• the share of companies that offered ICT training to their employees stops at 16%, against a European average of 20%;
• We are last in the continent for the share of ICT graduates out of the total population with a degree (1.3% compared to an EU value of 3.9%).

As for Connectivity, Italy has some critical issues. Italy is in 25th place for fixed broadband and in last place for the use of mobile broadband. The gap is due to the inequalities within the population in the quality of the connection adopted.

Italian companies showed a better performance in the last DESI, gaining 9 positions in the ranking, reaching tenth place in Europe. Good results depend on three indicators

• Electronic Invoicing, Italy is first in the continent;
• use of Medium-High sophistication cloud services (38% against an EU average of 26%);
• Small-Medium enterprises have an excellent level of digital intensity at least basic (however, Italian SMEs are lagging behind in adopting eCommerce).

Stationary are digital public services (18th place overall) where two contrasting trends are recorded: availability of public services to citizens and businesses, is comparable to European averages. While, Italy is third from last in terms of internet users who interact online with the PA.

The DESI Index has some limits which, if not known, can generate distorted evaluations and lead to incorrect decisions. The index does not measure the implementation of the Digital Agenda, as it uses outdated data and does not calculate other phenomena, such as that of IT security. Furthermore, it does not give useful information to those who – like Italy – need to identify the areas in which to invest in order to improve digitization.

The Digital Agenda Observatory has developed the Digital Maturity Indexes (DMI), a system of 117 indicators (including the 33 that make up the DESI) grouped into the 4 implementation dimensions of the Digital Agenda:

• Infrastructures – diffusion and use of broadband, both fixed and mobile, between citizens, businesses and PA;
• Public Administration – dissemination and use of eGovernment services;
• Citizens – dissemination and use of digital / internet tools and digital skills;
• Enterprises – diffusion and use of digital technologies in the processes of production and sale of products and services.

In addition to the large number of indicators, the characterizing element of the DMI lies in the fact that each dimension is then broken down according to the Enabling Factors (useful for measuring the efforts and investments made to make the area more digital) and the Results Obtained (for monitor the outcome of these digitization initiatives).

What does the DMI say about the state of digitalization in Italy? Out of 27 European countries, Italy is:

• 17th for efforts made in the implementation of its Digital Agenda;
• 23rd for results achieved with the digitization initiatives adopted in recent years and promoted primarily by the Minister for Digital Transition, the Department for Digital Transformation, and AgID.

Even evaluating the level of digitization through the 117 DMI indicators, Italy does not keep pace with the neighboring countries of the old continent. The indices confirm the DESI messages, at least in terms of ranking. With this tool there is the possibility of knowing how to better interpret the phenomena underlying the delays.

Thanks to DMIs, we can make more complete and precise assessments, offering policy makers a better understanding of the dynamics of development and orientation of digitization interventions.