Sustainability

"Almost half our workforce is involved in research and development activities. Our operations constantly feature a high level of ability to compete through innovative solutions, and this is the foundation of our identity and our ability to work for the future."

The survival and competitiveness of an organisation like Finmeccanica is strictly related to its ability to develop new products, new technology and new services with a high level of added value.

There is much abuse of the term innovation. Many people talk about it, but it is not easy to discover what they actually mean by it. Finmeccanica’s culture is much more pragmatic: we prefer to leave words to one side, and show the strength of our commitment in figures and experience.

The figures are what tell us that innovation is never just an accidental occurrence at Finmeccanica, but derives from an ongoing planning and control process achieved through integration with company strategies.  In this way the innovations are made in the field, inside each of the Group’s companies. In addition to this our aim is to ensure that the technology developed in one sector can be transferred to others, creating positive synergies between different businesses. This is another feature of our integrated Group strength. 

Consequently, results are both concrete and measurable. Development of new technologies and their application go hand-in-hand, together with participation in research and development programmes at both national and international level. These are then transformed into patents, which every year grow in quality, number and international extension.

To find out more on how Finmeccanica manages its investments in Research and Development, we suggest you read the chapter “Value creation and innovation” in the 2010 Sustainability Report.