Riccardo Paterni

On June 28th 2018, several companies from the Italian Motorsport Industry have gathered to proceed in structuring a meaningful network aiming to enhance the value generated by the Italian Motorsport Industry ecosystem towards global opportunities. 

The industry know-how needs to be fully valued within global projects regarding several fields: motorsport constantly evolving needs, automotive rapidly changing and evolving scenarios, as well as aerospace, defence, biomedical and other fields that can benefit from research & development generated by Motorsport companies and their capabilities to accelerate innovation processes.

The companies involved were SMEs (Small and Medium Size Enterprises), larger multinational corporations and global entities that are channelling and leveraging investments involving the ecosystem.

The meeting was held at the facilities of one of the companies, YCom in Collecchio Parma (future meetings are also going to be held at facilities of member companies in order to stimulate practical ways to synergise activities) and represented a sought-after follow-up to a conference that was held in Rome last April in which opportunities and methods of business development for the Italian Motorsport ecosystem were outlined and debated (see article Il Motorsport Italiano Fa Sistema for an overview of that meeting).

The network is now rapidly proceeding to structure itself while aiming directly to fulfil the action items agenda agreed upon. Activities are being implemented to stimulate deeper knowledge among the companies part of the network in order to facilitate synergies targeting international growth opportunities.

Self-knowledge to fully leverage on the own assets, focus on developing far reaching synergies and determination for practical concrete action, represent three key traits shared within the network. Stay tuned for updates … 

#motorsportItalia

(other pictures relevant to the meeting available at this link)

In business terms innovation has become a buzzword; it seems that everything needs to be innovative in order to succeed generating sustainability and growth: products, services, overall business models. In reality sustainability and growth are not simply linked to a commonly shared concept of innovation (innovation means to be creative, to think and act in original ways), rather innovation that generates results is more complex in its foundations (innovations has its roots in applying original thinking that actually achieve desired results: ineffective original thinking is simply creative, not innovative). Any company that truly thrives on innovation understands and applies this consideration as a matter of fact.

Recently I  have had the opportunity to spend some intense hours in the unique setting of the Le Mans 24 hours as a fascinated enthusiastic spectator from the grandstands as well as from the pits and paddock. It is the pits and paddock perspective that has made me associate Le Mans’ overall context to a continuous search for the actual innovation described above.

It is a given that technological innovation, developed within regulations boundaries, determines a key competitive advantage mostly within a race characterised by the integrated focus on extreme performance and extensive endurance. It is not a given to realise that such sophisticated technology totally depends on the human factor’s synergised actions in order to achieve concrete and consistent results (and the human factor comprises everyone: management, engineers, drivers, mechanics, support staff).

In these terms the 24 Hours of Le Mans exemplifies at best the innovation edge represented by Motorsport because of its unique characteristics and complexities. In fact, innovation is not simply a matter of research and development, it is also a matter of finding original practical solutions to make them work and manage emerging challenges. Action within Le Mans pits effectively represents these concepts and certainly some of the extemporaneous solutions that arise from the unique mix of technology and human factor find further refinement and elaboration after the race and become sources of further research and innovation. All in all this can concretely generate an innovation mindset widespread within the racing team and the overall Motorsport organisation.

Three key factors

From this perspective, Le Mans 24 hours’ innovation edge inspires some observations that can be quite useful for any organisation that concretely and consistently wants to grow leveraging on pragmatic innovation. Three key factor surface in a distinct way: a) the need for total synergic organisational interdependence ; b) the need for structure in order to be fast and dynamic towards the achievement of the set goal ; c) the realisation that any detail, no matter how trivial, counts and it can make the difference towards the affirmation of innovative practices.

Synergic interdependence means that effective innovation depends upon the professional integrated effort of any single role (drivers, management, engineers, crew members; everyone has a direct essential influence on manifesting actual innovation). Organisational charts with defined roles and responsibilities are on evident display in Le Mans’ pits where effective action and effective solutions require no hesitation and cannot afford effort overlaps. It all hinges on a consistent overall focus on any detail: an original solution will remain at the creative level until all details involved into it line-up towards an actual effective result turning creativity into actual innovation.

To understand what actual innovation is, and the actual complexities it involves, an inside look to the 24 Hours of Le Mans can represent a source of pragmatic inspiration to any company in any field.

(by Riccardo Paterni, article already published on June 25th 2018 in WinningFomula.io)

On June 20th 2018 Motorsport has taken center stage within an international knowledge management conference (KM2018) organized by the International Institute of Applied Knowledge Management and held at the University of Pisa.

Riccardo Paterni (co-founder of Synergy Pathways) together with Francesco Sedea (co-founder and General Manager of Aviorace) and Giovanni Delfino (founder and CEO of Autotecnicamotori Motori) outlined the unique ways in which the Motorsport Industry applies and develops its know-how enabling its sharing in other industries and the efficient and effective acceleration of innovation.

Thanks to the organizers and partecipanti for giving us this opportunity to show enlightening perspectives on how Motorsport contributes to create value in racing and beyond. Much more to come about these topics, stay tuned…

 

 

I have attended the opening day (April 25th) of the AutoChina 2018 auto show in Beijing. The sector is more dynamic than ever in China: set to have one of the global leadership position not only in operational but also technological ways necessary to ensure product efficiency, performance, reliability and overall appreciation within an Electric Vehicles framework that is booming.

(AutoChina 2018 blog)

During the last few months electric motorsport has made several headlines: announcements of new series (among others several, and the number keeps rising: support series to the MotoGP, GT series, Global RallyCross Challenge); technical and commercial upgrades of present ones (see Formula E); new record seeking challenges in classic racing venues (see for example the VW prototype and the Pikes Peak hillclimb).

We have come to associate electric motorsport to something innovative and futuristic; in actuality it is thanks to electric power that performance has begun to be associated with the emerging newly born field of automotive at the end of the 1800s.

On December 18th 1898 the French Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat was the first protagonist of an officially recorded Leggi tutto “MOTORSPORT: BACK TO THE FUTURE FROM ITS ELECTRIC ROOTS”

(THE ITALIAN MOTORSPORT MADE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES WANTS TO GROW: A CONFERENCE ON THE TOPIC)

Sarà un vero piacere contribuire a creare un contesto di apprendimento, condivisione e concreta progettualità in occasione di questo evento. Il programma della conferenza disponibile a questo link:

ASSOCIAZIONE MOTORSPORT ITALIA Conferenza di Presentazione 2018

13 – Aprile 2018, Roma – Novotel EUR

Temi: Valorizzazione del Mercato, situazione OGGI, nuovi trend per il FUTURO. Sviluppo di competenze e conoscenze, Integrazione e Sinergie tra aziende, Sfida verso la Globalizzazione