Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - P2P Digital (P2P Digitalisation Support to SME)

Teaser

\"The project “P2P Digital” addresses the problem recognized by most European national governments and the European Commission, that there are increased demands of digitalisation of SMEs in order to maintain and extend European competitiveness. Digitalisation is an integral...

Summary

\"The project “P2P Digital” addresses the problem recognized by most European national governments and the European Commission, that there are increased demands of digitalisation of SMEs in order to maintain and extend European competitiveness.

Digitalisation is an integral and vital part of the future Industry 4.0, which will be driven by a new generation of information technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, big data and data analytics, robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing. While many big companies can allocate resources to research, innovation and implementation, many SMEs are lagging and there are also large differences between regions and sectors in their uptake of digitalisation.

There is an urgent need to find measures which can increase the speed and ease of adoption of SME of digitalisation. Some of these options can include the successful use of ICT vouchers, methods of putting SME in touch with experts / research / approved technological centres, skills to support innovation among digital SMEs.

The five partner-organisations from five business and innovation development centres or agencies in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Sweden have a common recognition, that the support to SMEs of digitalization could be collectively enhanced by a peer learning approach.

The overall objective of \"\"P2P Digital\"\" is to provide innovation support institutions in regions across Europe with insight into parameters upon which initiatives can be based or refined, with regards to methodologies that can increase digitalisation in SMEs.

Through the project a Design Option Paper (DOP) about “Digitalisation Support to SMEs” was produced. This paper is the result of studying multiple initiatives that aim to improve the awareness and ability of SMEs to take advantage of digital technology in their administrative, manufacturing or sales and marketing processes.

The study shows that the five participating countries and regions are all dedicated to work with initiatives that address the issue of digitalization with a focus on SMEs. Each agency has chosen initiatives that represent and are characteristic for their region or country, and these examples demonstrate a variety of mechanisms that should be taken into consideration when designing such initiatives or programs. Studies show that SMEs are generally less digitalized than larger companies, and many of the initiatives work with financial incentives to encourage SMEs to address barriers to adopting digital technology in their operation, work processes or market relations.

Although most of the initiatives can be characterised as “voucher” programs, there is a great variety in for example, program size, budget, number of recipients and administrative processes.

The DOP can be used as a template for learning within the project-partners, as well as a conduit for further communication to other business and innovation support organisations that are involved in digitalisation of SMEs.
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Work performed

\"Using Twining+, the partners have investigated and compared existing innovation support initiatives that are relevant to, or could be made relevant to digitalization in SMEs, by describing and evaluating digitalization initiatives offered in the \"\"P2P Digital\"\" member regions or countries.

The activities include workshops arranged by the partner organisations in the following cities;

- Copenhagen from 22-23 March 2018. Joint workshop and kick-off meeting. Participants from the partner organisations. The scope and structure of the project and the Design Option Paper (DOP) were discussed. The Danish initiatives and experiences with national digitalisation programmes for SMEs were presented and discussed.

- Nurnberg from 2-3 May 2018. Joint workshop with participants from the partner organisations. The German/Bayern initiatives for SME digitalisation were presented and discussed. Also the future tasks regarding the DOP and the training were discussed.

- Stockholm from 14-15 June 2018. Joint workshop with participants from partner organisations. The Swedish digitalisation strategy and different programs were presented. A concrete project was also presented, and the next meeting and the DOP was discussed.

- Antwerp from 17-18 September 2018. Joint workshop with participants from the partner organisations. The Belgian/Flemish strategy was presented as well as different program to support the digital transformation of SMEs. Different stories from the Antwerp Incubator StartUpVillage were presented.

- Tallinn from 10-11 October 2018. Joint workshop with participants from the project partners. The Estonian Digitalisation Strategy and Solutions were presented and discussed. The DOP and the final stages of the project were discussed.

The findings from the workshops were presented and discussed on a so-called decentralised training and workshop in Stockholm from 10-11 December 2018 with 38 participants. The participant were members of EEN organisations from 9 different countries. The agenda focused on digital transformation and findings from the \"\"P2P Digital\"\" project. The programme included workshops, for instance on “How to raise awareness about digitalisation”.

Finally, the Design Option Paper (DOP) about “Digitalisation Support to SMEs” was produced in December 2018 and January 2019. The DOP includes information about different national digitalisation initiatives presented and discussed at the joint workshops and at the decentralized training. The result of the process is a DOP which summarizes national programmes for the digitalisation of SMEs in five EU-counties followed by a section of lessons learned and recommendations.

The main result of the project is the DOP. But also a closer cooperation between the partner organisations and an enhanced knowledge within the partner organsations of how digtalisation of SMEs are done in other countries are results of the project and will be an inspiration for the future work.

The DOP will be accessible on the webpage of the partner organisations and on EASMEs list of Designs Options Papers developed under H2020-INNOSUP.
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Final results

A potential impact of the project and of the DOP is more efficient programmes and initiatives regarding the digitalisation of SMEs using the P2P learnings and recommendations.

Website & more info

More info: https://ehhs.dk/digitalsmv.