Digital transformation is not a linear path. It’s a process marked by increasing complexity that touches infrastructure, applications, data, security, and services. These are the key areas that frame the discussion with Antonio Burinato, General Manager, and Sergio Ajani, Service Solutions Design Director at Innovaway.

“The point today is no longer to adopt new technologies, but to continuously govern their complexity,”
he continues, summarizing the challenge shared by both private companies and public administrations:
“The partner's role is to provide the necessary support to keep the IT ecosystem consistent, secure, updated, and aligned with the client's strategic priorities.”

Beyond Technical Skills: The Need for Strategic Partners

The market no longer demands mere technical skills, but rather partners — present at critical moments, able to anticipate problems, operate across heterogeneous infrastructures, fragmented workflows, strict regulations, and a growing demand for automation and AI.

Competitive and regulatory pressures are most evident in mature sectors such as finance, utilities, retail, and central/regional public administration.

Innovaway has already been active for years on high-scale, high-complexity projects:

• Managed services for Intesa Sanpaolo and IsyBank,
• Service management for Rinascente,
• Projects for Regione Lombardia, INPS, universities, and regional healthcare systems.

These are distributed digital ecosystems with thousands of users, strict SLAs, 24/7 environments, and mission-critical reliability requirements. Here, the value of blending proximity, continuity, and service culture with a structured industrial model emerges.

Innovaway in numbers:

• 25+ years of experience,
• 800 professionals (offices in Naples, Benevento, Milan, Rome, and Turin),
• Projected 2025 revenue: €60 million (+10% from €52M in 2024),
• International offices and a deep-rooted service culture, its distinctive market trait.

Service Culture as a Competitive Advantage

This "extended accountability" defines how Innovaway works, its internal organization, and relationships with technology partners.

Sergio Ajani emphasizes:

“IT efficiency today avoids improvisation. The solution lifecycle must be continuous. The team that designs should also manage and evolve the solution — only then do you achieve coherence.”

This eliminates handovers, reduces perceived complexity, and builds deep knowledge of infrastructure, processes, and evolving needs — fostering long-term trust, especially with finance, retail, industrial, and public sector clients.

Antonio Burinato adds:

“We have a clear value proposition, solid growth, and a strategy oriented toward scalability and sustainability. And it’s healthy growth — not episodic but structural.”

2024's new multi-year contracts contribute to this stable increase, especially in Enterprise Service Management, IT Operations, Application Maintenance, and high-value BPO services, where Innovaway has built a mature model, now scaling further based on a multi-year industrial plan.

Not Just Technology — A Governance Model

Innovaway doesn’t just provide technology. It builds a governance model for transformation and helps clients harness digital innovation across the entire solution lifecycle.

Ajani underscores:

“Service consistency is the differentiator. You might have the best technology, but if your structure can’t guarantee continuity and execution, it won't go far.”

This is clearly seen in major contracts like Intesa Sanpaolo, where Innovaway manages unified service governance and application support:

“With Intesa, we don’t act like a vendor. We’re part of their operational machine,”
says Burinato.

Similarly, with INPS, Innovaway helps manage massive pension services, and with Regione Lombardia, it ensures data backup security in the regional healthcare system (with Rubrik). It supports digital health projects including teleassistance, clinical platforms, and territorial ecosystems (e.g., ARIA in Lombardia).

In retail, Innovaway is a strategic partner for Rinascente, offering omnichannel support, in-store assistance, and application governance. In the university/research sector, it delivers advanced services 24/7 for institutions and foundations.

Multilingual, cross-border delivery from Albania and Bulgaria, alongside Italian hubs, enables global SLAs and continuous availability.
Ajani concludes:

“Our go-to-market is built on service consistency. When clients see we're always present — even during tough times — that’s when it becomes a true partnership.”

A Virtuous Strategy for Technology Enablement

Innovaway’s integrated innovation strategy combines security, cloud, automation, and AI.

Burinato stresses:

“No IT project today starts without a risk assessment. Cybersecurity and data protection are prerequisites, not optional features.”

This stems from real-world experience and the growing exposure of organizations to threats, incidents, and vulnerabilities across distributed ecosystems, hybrid infrastructures, and heterogeneous applications.

Ajani adds:

“Clients don’t want to hear technical explanations when something breaks. They want one party responsible for the entire service.”

Cybersecurity, then, is not just about tech. It’s about operational governance, incident response, and a true end-to-end service model.

Hybrid Cloud and AI: Practical, Not Dogmatic

Cloud governance is equally crucial.

“Cloud shouldn’t be a dogma,” says Burinato. “Without control, it adds complexity instead of reducing it.”

Ajani reinforces:

“Cloud, on-prem, hybrid — what matters is a unified, continuous governance line ensuring consistency and service quality.”

Innovaway applies an agnostic, hybrid strategy, respecting client choices while guiding them toward efficient multi-cloud environments — integrating public, private, and hybrid services, with firm control over SLAs, costs, and processes.

AI: From Hype to Execution

AI is the densest chapter of all.

Burinato calls it:

“The next level of automation — beyond the hype.”

But he warns:

“Generative AI is just the first step. The real shift will come with Agentic AI, capable of executing tasks and orchestrating complex workflows.”

Ajani agrees:

“When AI doesn’t just respond, but acts and suggests solutions, it becomes a value multiplier.”

This requires tailoring AI use to real company needs, acknowledging its non-deterministic nature, and verticalizing LLMs for specific domains — starting with open-source solutions.

Innovaway’s strategy takes shape in its strategic technology partnerships, the most prominent being with HCLSoftware, using native AI capabilities on HCL platforms in real client processes.

Recently awarded Europe Managed Service Provider Partner of the Year, Innovaway’s extended ecosystem spans cloud providers, cybersecurity vendors, automation tools, and ITSM platforms — all integrated into a single service logic.

Closing Insight

Burinato concludes with a clear message:

“What we did three years ago isn’t enough today, and it will change again in three years.
Digital isn’t a project. It’s a continuous journey.”

Ajani reinforces this long-term view: continuity is what turns a supplier into a strategic partner, capable of navigating growing complexity in digital systems alongside clients.