Driven by the growing interest of the market for all the hybridisations and crossings between the worlds of AV, IoT and IT, we interviewed Ettore Mastropasqua, Head of Sales Department of Allnet.Italia.
Fresh from the ICT Solutions Day 2022 organised in September by the company, a key event for the Channel and ICT sector in Italy, he told us about the trends in the sector, from the growing importance of software and services, to the urgency of Cybersecurity, up to integration between IT and IoT. Those who participated in the ICT Solutions Day organised by Allnet.Italia, which took place in Bologna at the Hotel Regency last September 14, took part in an event where customers, vendors, and partners were able to meet and discuss through a series of presentations, speeches and round tables. Among the issues addressed, the evolution of networks from a Smart City and PNRR perspective, Cybersecurity (with a particular focus on “Security by design”), in addition to the important developments in terms of UC and collaboration between teams, stand out.
The rich programme included, among others, the intervention of the journalist Maurizio Melis, the teacher Mirco Marchetti, as well as important managers in the sector (Marco Ramilli, CEO of Yoroi Security; David Bevilacqua, CEO of Ammagamma, etc.) Among the top names there was also Dr. Camilla Sebastiani, Head of the Technical Secretariat of the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transaction, Presidency of the Council of Ministers. A few days after the event, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ettore Mastropasqua, Head of Sales Department of Allnet.Italia, to reflect together on industry trends, some of which emerged predominantly throughout the event.
Ettore Mastropasqua, Head of Sales Department of Allnet.Italia
Ettore Mastropasqua – For us, ICT Solutions Day is a party, an opportunity to meet. Over the years we have become the reference point for the world of telecommunications, understood in a broad sense. After a two year hiatus, it’s been great being able to meet again: nowadays the Web allows us to know the news of the market almost directly, on the other hand, due to the pandemic, the team was missing collective work and shared planning. For this reason, the cut we gave to the seminars was not technical, but a vision of what we believe and according to some institutions will be the world of telecommunications, and the world of ICT in general, in the near future. We hardly talk about single products anymore, but about their applications, now it is the solution that makes the difference. Consequently, what our partners expect from us is a vision, or rather, a forecast of what will happen over the years. We feel like a kind of industry influencer!
Connessioni – In fact, there is no fair or event that represents your market right now.
EM – Yes, there is no event that has the same proposal as ours, and I would also like to add distributors who give such a broad overview. There are similar events, perhaps more vertical in some business units, but none of these, at the moment, offers a 360 ° view of the world of ICT, and in particular of the software and services side. This is where we are going, and it is a very clear trend: the market, also due to shortage problems, requires this, and we realise it even just trivially from the proportion of hardware and software solutions that are increasingly balanced in our warehouses and by the continuous new services that Allnet.Italia makes available to its Partners.
C – The work setting also changes, because selling a product or selling a software or service are very different activities…
EM – Exactly, the service, for example, is immediate, even if it is more difficult to tell the properties and earn the customer’s trust, also for custom reasons. An example: companies increasingly have proprietary Cloud platforms that sometimes replace internal servers, with a general lightening of IT rooms.
C – Looking to the immediate future, what are your growth goals?
EM – We are investing in cybersecurity and data protection, but also in the area – obviously connected to the former – of communication between companies. They are two worlds in rapid evolution and in ever closer integration, which require complex infrastructures and systems that are centralised and capillary at the same time (just think of the increase in smart working, and the increasing use of digital identities). As an example of the urgency of cybersecurity, made indispensable by the multiplication of connected devices, by smart working, and by political and social factors, this year we have acquired a company specialised in cybersecurity, the Italian Symbolic, because in our opinion it is a key sector, which will become increasingly important over time. The other trend is telecommunications understood as UCC – Unified Communication & Collaboration – they have always been the DNA of Allnet.Italia: in our past not for nothing they were what were simply called “telephony”. We also believe that our role as trainers and informers for professionals in our sector is of fundamental importance, and we want to continue to do so, also through this event.
C – Another interesting element of the event was the opening to the IoT world…
EM – Yes, we are investing a lot in that field: the data coming from sensors, now scattered in many areas of our daily life, are conveyed, and then interpreted through the network. I believe that IoT and industry 4.0 will be the future of ICT, because the control and management of any device are, and will increasingly be, central, both in the world of end consumers and in that of businesses and this, of course, is linked to the topic of cybersecurity we were talking about a little while ago. Furthermore, through the IoT we can optimise consumption, resulting in a reduction of the environmental impact, an increasingly important aspect in this historical period.
However, it is not easy to communicate this important trend: in the IoT the concept of product almost disappears, and we feel the need for cultural work to explain to our partners that they should not start from the product, but from the need, from the actual request. This, for us, is the future.
