This project is a fundamental example to reaffirm the close link that exists between JEME and the academic environment that has allowed its development over the years, such as the University and SDA Bocconi. In fact, through the collaboration with some academic figures of SDA itself and SAP Ariba and Accenture, they have led to a research project on the state of the art of digital transformation in large Italian corporations.

Initial situation

The project carried out in collaboration with JEME stems from the desire to understand how large companies had introduced an element of digital innovation in their procurement processes. The collaboration focused on the formulation of a shared questionnaire and JEME took care of the data collection and processing methodology, while SDA Bocconi made it possible to spread the same through its network of big firms throughout the country.

JEME’s contribution

• The project was mainly divided into two phases: the creation of an analytical questionnaire and the analysis of the data produced by the dissemination of the same.
• With regard to the stipulation of the questionnaire, the team made use of a primary in-depth study of the most recent international economic literature on the subject of the digital revolution in business contexts. From this, the questionnaire was divided into five different sections: the first focused on the collection of personal data of the interviewed company (e.g. turnover in the last few years and role of the person who filled in the answers to the questions), followed by a second description section of the company’s vision and business model. The remaining three sections, on the other hand, concerned more specifically the main activities of the procurement process used, in order to understand the importance of the role of the CPO in business processes, the advantages sought in this process and the most common difficulties encountered during the company procurement.
• Once this section was concluded, in agreement with the partner companies in the research project, a launch event of the questionnaire was organized, which was attended by some of the large companies to which it was directed and in which the main speakers were the CEOs of the same companies.
• Once the questionnaires were disseminated, the data were collected and analyzed in collaboration with the professors of SDA Bocconi and with some of the main consultants of the Accenture and SAP Ariba companies. Finally, the presentation of these results led to the conclusion of a fundamental research project that lasted almost 8 months.

JEME’s impact

The project has guaranteed JEME considerable added value both in terms of experience and notoriety, as it represented the springboard for the creation of extremely profitable partnerships both with the professors who managed the study and with the companies that have collaborated.

In addition, the fundamental work carried out by the association for carrying out the research activity and for producing its results was recognized by them.