The meeting, organized by the Innovation Consortium Polo Palm, was attended by over 50 companies. The meeting entitled "New Ways of competitiveness" has been realized to allow companies a comparison on the current market situation and on how to network using the tools made available by the Consortium.
The meeting started with the Partners’ Assembly to amend the Articles of Statute that were obsolete compared to the current needs of the Polo and ratify the entry of four new members: Roven, Cogaspiù, University of L'Aquila, Traslocabile .
Then, there was the conference "New ways of Competitiveness" with the speech of the Assessor for Productive Activities and Vice-President of the Regional Council Giovanni Lolli.
The President of the Polo Palm, Primo Pompilii, presented with numbers and data, at national and regional level, the situation of the wood industry and highlighted as "the rising costs of energy and transport, the excessive bureaucratic complexity and the tax burden make even more difficult for small and medium companies to overcome the current economic crisis”. The sector at the national level had a 30% drop in production with more than 10,000 companies that have gone out of business. In Abruzzo, the Polo is worth today about 200 million Euros in sales and 1,300 direct representatives. Primo Pompilii also asked to Assessor Lolli a decisive action to help the Polo companies to have the tools to overcome the crisis and to consolidate the undertaken processes of internationalization.
Vice President Giovanni Lolli answered by drawing the guidelines that will characterize his future work, focusing on improving the efficiency of the bureaucratic machine and especially on a policy close to the companies with a constant listening to their needs.
In the second part of the morning, the Polo Coordinator Giammario Cauti exposed the many activities conducted by the Polo, the tools available since now for companies such as Carta dei Servizi (Services’ Card) and pilot projects.
Finally, the Marketing Manager Lorenzo Spinosi examined the strategy for the national and international promotion of the Polo itself and presented the new Palm brand (the result of a research that was inspired by the theories of the Gestalt perception of forms), and officially put on-line the new web site www.palmabruzzo.it and the web marketing activities aimed at the promotion of the members through the web site.
In the afternoon the Polo Palm partners continued the meeting at the Country Golf in Miglianico with an interesting team building activities to strengthen the cohesion spirit among the members.