"High quality services for the public and the private market"
Pasquale Totaro is responsible for the design and the management of innovative services within Spazio Aperto. Spazio Aperto is a social and solidarity-based cooperative in Milan, established in 1984, which provides high quality integrated services for the public and the private market.
Which is your role and duties in Spazio Aperto? Which previous experience are you bringing in and which new competences are you hoping to acquire thanks to INNO-WISEs?
I am responsible for the design and management of innovative services. My experience comes from the field of international cooperation and I believe that the skills that can be gained are above all those related to the project design, programming and planning of the initiatives undertaken. From INNO-WISEs, I expect to acquire elements related to the management of market-oriented companies.
How do you think to use the tools and competences gained through the project and how do you think they will improve your day-by-day skills and in general your WISEs competitiveness?
I hope that the tools available and the skills acquired will serve to improve the management skills of the middle management. This could guarantee greater efficiency and scalability of management processes that at this moment remain one of our weaknesses.
The word of WISEs in Europe is rapidly changing, what kind of innovation do you think it mostly needed to improve their business and be more competitive on the market?
I believe that essentially it serves greater ability to relate and communicate our core business within the market. Innovation must also pass through the ability to design goods and services that respond more to customer needs.
Which is your personal and your WISE approach to transformational innovation?
Personally, I believe that, in today's market, the use of digital tools allows us to increase the quality of work and productivity both in the management of internal processes within the WISE and in the identification of smart and innovative solutions to customers. Spazio Aperto, like management, also has this vision, but it has often clashed with the difficulty of being able to implement and support the use of digital tools. In the attempts that we have done, the results have been disappointing. The composition of the vast majority of workers reflects a population with very low levels of digital education, if not precisely digital illiteracy. For this reason Spazio Aperto wants to aim at least at the training reinforcement of a group of people like middle management.
Why do you find the project interesting and decided to participate to the experimental phase (pilot action)?
Because I think it is interesting to understand what tools are available to social enterprises and which ones can actually contribute to their development. I think it is also interesting to understand how the ecosystem of social enterprises is evolving within the European community
How would you evaluate the advantage for your WISE to create a link with other European social enterprises? And to participate together in a project which would improve your skills and competiveness on the market?
It could be interesting even if it is necessary to define with specificity which elements can strengthen all the beneficiaries. The social enterprises, in Italy, have, as main characteristic, the link with the territory they belong to and rarely have the capacity to create profitable connections with foreign social enterprises unless it is based on elements related to the management and development of the enterprises themselves.
