The challenge: promoting grassroots innovation with a practical approach
In a constantly changing environment, training is the driving force behind innovation. Companies that invest in skills development build solid foundations for tackling market challenges and seizing new opportunities. With this vision in mind, at Upskill 4.0, we designed the San Marco Rockets program for San Marco Group Spa: an initiative that combines training and technological experimentation, focusing on the value of people and the power of ideas. San Marco Group is Italy's leading manufacturer of paints and coatings for the professional construction industry. Headquartered in Marcon (VE), the Group now has eight production sites and owns six different brands, with a distribution network covering more than 100 countries across five continents.
Innovation is a key element in the San Marco Group's strategy. The company has set up a research and development team to identify new formulas and products that can meet consumer needs. With San Marco Rockets, this culture of innovation aims to be shared across different business functions, promoting the bottom-up development of ideas and improvements in processes and in the range of products and services offered to customers. With the right tools and the creation of a corporate culture basedon innovation and employee empowerment, it is possible to make employees the primary promoters of process efficiency through the conscious use of technology. Active training in innovation methodologies and the application of generative AI allows change processes to be activated across all functions. To this end, we have developed a training format to raise employee awareness of cutting-edge issues, such as AI and Innovation Design methodologies, in order to understand how to manage innovation.
The solution: an innovation lab for the future of the company
The project involves 15 San Marco Group employees from different departments and functions. A diverse and motivated team, called upon to work along three strategic lines to transform the corporate culture and make the organization more open to the adoption of artificial intelligence:
1️⃣ Awareness A first step towards understanding the potential of generative AI and its areas of application, with a critical and strategic eye.
2️⃣ Exploration Using innovation management methodologies, such as design thinking, helps staff reinterpret business needs and transform them into innovation challenges.
3️⃣ Experimentation Applying rapid prototypingactivities to develop concrete, testable, and scalable solutions capable of improving internal processes and creating new value.
3 innovative prototypes for the future of the company
On June 20, the three working groups presented the results of their work and the innovative solutions they had devised and prototyped to make the company more efficient to the company's top management: these included services for end customers and internal solutions to improve relations with suppliers and other stakeholders. By combining the needs identified using the Design Thinking methodology with rapid prototyping made possible by training in Python and generative artificial intelligence, the three groups proposed:
– Verny 24/7 Talk smart, stay connected: the virtual assistant integrated into the San Marco Group website to assist customers at all times with the solution best suited to their needs
– Project Rialto: a system to optimize passive invoicing
– Sage Smart Assistant: aninternal chatbot integrated with Sage X3 to assist internal resources in using the company management system correctly and consistently with the Group's operations and procedures.
Artificial Intelligence is redefining the job landscape, and investing in training today is an essential strategic choice for companies. According to the World Economic Forum, AI could affect up to 40% of global working hours over the next five years, profoundly transforming roles and skills. In this scenario, companies are called upon to understand how to integrate GenAI to enhance activities and productivity, but the real enabling factor remains human capital. The adoption of AI cannot be separated from people's trust, understanding, and engagement. For this reason, in addition to tools and technologies, targeted training courses and a cultural evolution that allows new ways of working to be embraced are needed.
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Leveraging Generative AI for Job Augmentation and Workforce Productivity: Scenarios, Case Studies, and a Framework for Action, World Economic Forum, 2024.
