Common Round Table

The rapid acceleration of economic change and the need to evolve new techniques and methodologies in private businesses and public institutions make it necessary to create new strategies ready to take on the competitive challenge imposed by the global market. These strategies must ensure that businesses and citizens have a decision making process that is streamlined and effective in order to meet objectives and able to optimise the exploitation of resources.

With this objective the Chamber of Commerce of Vercelli, in 1997, carried out the first edition of the project recreating development whose aim was to facilitate the meeting of the most meaningful economic realities by means of a Common Round Table.
The project, involving round table discussions, is focused on the belief that decisions and activities, even at a local level, can be really effective only if they are part of a shared plan of coordination.

By mean of this new culture of “projecting together”, which is necessary to make aware and active all the economic subjects of the territory, the Common Round Table becomes the right place to overcome the conflict of interests and represent the linkage between the economic/professional reality and the political one.

The mission

The Common Round Table serves the role of creating a widely shared document which:

• outlines tendencies within the local economy;
• identifies a series of medium term objectives which can be created in concrete terms and a vision of an ideal scenario to work towards in the short and medium term;
• indicates useful steps towards the creation of this ideal scenario while exploring those themes of particular interest for the local economy.

The shared planning model has also other objectives:

• the circulation of information about complex themes regarding the development of the Province;
• the assessment of the priorities to work on in order to develop and add value to the reciprocal synergies and the influence capital of all the subjects involved;
• the evaluation of local area vocations which are possible in keeping with current or feasible investment capabilities;
• the growth of the awareness of the public challenges among aspiring local political managers, favouring the formation of global visions within which they must find answers to the specific problems of local sectors.

The structure

As well as the original Common Round Table, four round tables have been created according to thematic areas:

• Human Resources, innovation, the connection between school and work and the transfer of technology;
• Industry and infrastructures;
• Commerce, handicrafts, agriculture and tourism;
• Internationalization.

The leading players

The principal voices in the Table are the exponents of the social and economic realities in the community, bodies that by their nature represent the needs of the world of entrepreneurs, professionals, workers and citizens:

• Administrators and managers from the Chamber of Commerce;
• Associations representing various categories in industry, commerce, handicrafts, agriculture and tourism;
• Professional associations;
• Trade Unions;
• The world of school and university;
• Service organizations of the community;
• Entrepreneurs and promotional bodies;
• Exponents of community and religious groups.

It was expressly wished at this stage to exclude exponents from political institutions who will inevitably become involved later when the initiatives sparked off by the tables must find their place in the programs of political decision makers.

Work practices

The first activity consists of a diagnosis of the economic and structural situation of the territory involved in order to provide a common basis from which to plan the future.

After adequate promotion of the project it would be necessary to carry out a work plan to:

• Prepare the Tables’ meetings with two plenary sessions to open and close the process and three specific meetings for each thematic table;
• Organize a team for the coordination and animation of the meetings (for instance made up of professors of economics or territorial development, the President, the Secretary General and other executives from the Chamber of Commerce);
• Establish a small support group to research and processing the data necessary for the Tables;
• Prepare a model for the meetings including the illustration of the background data, both general and specific for each table, and outlining the possible trends in order to stimulate the discussion among the participants and the proposal of ideas and advices that will be presented during the final plenary meeting;
• Draw a final document that links together the four thematic areas and analyses the future of the territory.

THE PROJECT OF THE VERCELLI CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Example of database necessary to plan the work

The sharing of a common set of information is the first step to have a full comprehension of the territory and its needs and weaknesses.

For instance, the data collected in order to prepare the work of the discussion tables of the project done by the Vercelli Chamber of Commerce were

1. Demographic and economic background data:
   • The population trend from the census of 1951 to the one of 2001;
   • Demographic balance of the last 5 years, both natural and migratory, for the population of the town of Vercelli and for the whole territory of its province;
   • Population trend forecast by IRES and BDDE of the Piedmont Region administration: data about Piedmont and the province of Vercelli;
   • Population structure by age, educational level and features and tendency of the job mobility;
   • Indexes about the typology of the town (residential, industrial or service providing) as the ratio between local employees and residents or the percentage of employees by macro sector;
2. Database on the most important infrastructural works under construction and of the DOCUP works, in order to answer the question: How the territory is changing?
   • Basic indexes of the economic activity: employees by sector;
   • Total and sector added value;
   • Enterprises by sector and by juridical form, enterprises growth rate;
   • Make a comparison with the other provinces of Piedmont (last 5 years), as to answer: what is the model of the economy of Vercelli? How much income does it produce, in which way and in which sector?