Executive Vice Chairman, Pirelli & C. S.p.A.
Marco Tronchetti Provera, CEO, Pirelli | Podcast #5
Digitalization provides a great opportunity,” underlines Marco Tronchetti Provera, CEO of Pirelli and Bocconi Alumnus of the Year ...
Transcript (10 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
Today at Executive Chat we're going to meet Marco Provera, CEO of Pirelli. Mr. Provera is the quintessential representation of Italian excellence in traditional industries. However, in these days we are facing an important transformation, the challenge of traditional business, one of which is digital transformation. Can you first of all tell us how digital transformation is impacting products like an automotive product and specifically a tire?
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Marco Provera0:40
The digitalization is providing us a great opportunity. Our products were developed through the traditional way of trial and error. Digital gives us the possibility to utilize visualization in a way that makes the evolution of the products much faster and more efficient. And that is something that has created in our R&D a new momentum. We are now utilizing virtualization and the data we collect are true simulators developed in a product within a time frame that is at least 30% less than in the past.
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Interviewer1:32
This is extremely interesting, and the characteristic of digital transformation is in fact that it moves from the product to the entire organization. I understand that Pirelli has been making an important turnaround, making digital transformation at the center of the new strategic and organizational processes. So how did it work?
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Marco Provera1:50
We continued after having started with the products; we entered the factories. We have 19 factories, each of them has different processes but the largest part is in common. And we link all the processes and exchange information that before was through subsystems where data were not always so perfect. Introducing data analytics and through IIoT now we have the opportunity to simply find things, provide people the evidence that using properly data analytics we can have a maintenance that is quality-wise and cost-wise much more effective.
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Interviewer2:41
That's fantastic. Another challenge, Mr. Provera, is about sustainability. Of course the pandemic recently has further boosted the issues related to what we traditionally call in academia ESG: environment, social, and governance. How has an industry like automotive and specifically Pirelli been hit by these additional important transformations?
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Marco Provera3:08
I think it is officially becoming one of the priorities. For us it was already a priority. The first balance sheet of sustainability was really made in 2001. Every year we deliver it and in all the different categories of control of the ESG status we are leading the sector. And for us it's an opportunity because the products we deliver today and that stay in the market for the next five to ten years already have a content of sustainability that is a key factor.
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Interviewer3:49
So I can't help but conclude, considering that you are not only an alumnus of Bocconi, you won the prestigious award 'Alumnus of the Year', and you are a long-standing member of the board of our university: what do you expect from the sector of education in general for the future and specifically from a university like Bocconi?
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Marco Provera4:12
I'm proud to be part of the Bocconi life and story. Many years with Bocconi, I have to say that the reaction of Bocconi to the opportunity provided by the new technology has been amazingly positive. You did a great job. Now 25% of the people we hire that are specifically dedicated to innovation, data analytics, digital are coming from Bocconi.
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Interviewer4:43
I have just to compliment how you are coping with the future. Thank you, thank you very much for visiting Bocconi University. I look forward to having you again back here on campus to meet our students. Thank you for your...
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Marco Provera4:55
Invitation, I am really proud to be part of the Bocconi family, and the experience of this morning proved to me that you have very clever, very well-educated people, and I was really very much affected by this.