Aladino: GIS for foreign investment

Aladino – GIS supporting the foreign investment attraction process

Aladino is a Web-Oriented information system developed for Sviluppo Italia to support the process of attracting foreign investment. Designed to organise and manage information useful for understanding and analysing a territory, Aladino is an interactive tool that makes it possible to measure the competitiveness of Italian territories compared with foreign investment locations.
The system is based on a structured combination of documents and statistical and economic indicators classified into homogeneous categories and organised across several territorial levels: national, regional and provincial. The indicators and documents are stored in a geodatabase, which can be enriched and integrated with new indicators, category structures and geographic layers. Through the query interfaces, users can reconstruct the competitive profile of a territory, identify particularly significant indicators, carry out comparisons at national and international level, and perform advanced business intelligence and competitive positioning analyses.

Aladino enables users – through a database containing almost 59,000 items of information organised into approximately 1,000 indicators and 660 descriptive profiles – to carry out customised searches across different territorial levels and for specific topics of interest:

• macroeconomic environment;
• investment opportunities;
• incentives;
• infrastructure;
• business and industrial base;
• human capital;
• research and education system;
• foreign investment flows and stock.

For each Italian Region or Province, Aladino can therefore provide a range of key data, such as business density, road network infrastructure, labour costs, employment levels and investment in Research and Development, safety levels, GDP per capita and the cost of capital. Particularly detailed is the section dedicated to incentives, which provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of incentive legislation, news (primarily the opening of calls for applications) and documentation on incentives available for specific sectors and territories.
The system also makes it possible to carry out analyses of the 9 strategic sectors identified by Sviluppo Italia: Aerospace, Automotive, Chemicals, ICT, Logistics, Mechanical Engineering, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences (Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals), and Tourism. For each of these sectors, the analysis is based on a set of data which, when appropriately combined, make it possible to obtain a detailed map of the most competitive areas in Italy and assess their attractiveness compared with the main international hubs or clusters. The documents and indicators are drawn from national institutional sources (ISTAT, Bank of Italy, Unioncamere, MIUR) and international sources (IMD, Eurostat, UNCTAD World Investment Report). These are supplemented by information collected directly by Sviluppo Italia, which – also through its network of regional companies distributed throughout the country – continuously updates the data contained in Aladino.

Aladino is organised through horizontal and vertical menus that provide users with a streamlined and effective navigation experience, allowing access to numerous features:

• free or guided consultation of indicators and documents;
• analysis of incentives;
• business simulations and competitive positioning through the aggregation of indicators;
• sector analyses;
• graphical representation of analyses (tables, multidimensional charts, cartograms, positioning matrices, etc.);
• cartographic representation of analyses and thematic mapping of specific indicators;
• creation of customisable reports;
• creation of territorial “dashboards” summarising the performance of a territory;
• navigation of an entirely WebGIS-based section, enabling the geographic representation and thematic mapping of the information contained in the Geodatabase;
• export of data to Microsoft Office tools;
• printing of results;
• periodic updating of data according to their type and nature;
• possible acquisition of information flows from specialised external companies/entities.

In the Library section, users can access qualitative profiles developed by Sviluppo Italia on specific topics of interest. The profiles can be consulted through a free search or using the guided search filters.

• The free search makes it possible, by entering one or more keywords, to identify the relevant profile and all the information associated with it (relevant links, further information).
• The guided search, which allows further in-depth analysis and detailed screening of the results, guides users through “guided fields” – which first require the activation of the territorial level of analysis – and the selection of specifically designed search forms. Documents retrieved through searches, available in the most common electronic formats (pdf, word, excel), can be easily exported and saved. The consultation of Aladino indicators, in the Database section, can start with a simple free search or a more specific guided search.

Through the free search, users can enter words or phrases of interest (keywords) that provide links to the information contained within the database.
The guided search makes it possible, through the selection of successive parameters organised into categories, topics and indicators, to perform a targeted search starting from the territory of interest.

The aim of the business simulation feature is to identify the most attractive territories by comparing economic and statistical indicators. Analyses can be carried out at sector level, or the search criteria can be defined by territory or indicator. Competitive positioning is an extension of business intelligence which, by including the “cost” factor in the analysis of indicators, makes it possible to identify the most competitive territories in strategic sectors.

At the end of each search, business analysis or competitive positioning phase, users have access to various tools for presenting the analyses: tables, multidimensional charts, positioning matrices and cartographic representations of the analyses, with navigation and thematic mapping of the indicators being analysed

The reporting feature makes it possible to quickly generate summary profiles – enriched with charts and tables – on specific topics (territories, sectors, indicators). Reports can be exported in the most common electronic formats (word, excel, etc.). Finally, dashboards provide a concise overview of the territory being examined, highlighting selected statistical, economic and social data. This feature is particularly useful for users who want to quickly understand the most distinctive characteristics of a geographical area and identify the key factors to address in order to increase competitiveness.

The project was commissioned by Invitalia S.p.A. (formerly Sviluppo Italia S.p.A.). The National Agency for Inward Investment and Economic Development operates on behalf of the Government to increase the competitiveness of the country, particularly Southern Italy, and to support strategic sectors for development. Its main objectives are: promoting the attraction of foreign investment, supporting innovation and the growth of the productive system, and enhancing the potential of local territories.