Digitalization for SMEs (Di4SME)
We are in the midst of the transition towards a digital economy, which has the potential to spur innovation, enhance productivity and improve well-being. Many Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) stand to benefit dramatically from acquiring and using digital technologies, which offer new opportunities for SMEs to participate in the global economy, innovate and grow.
However, many SMEs are lagging behind in the digital transition. Most of them ignore the potential benefits in productivity and competitiveness deriving from the adoption of digital technologies, cannot clearly identify their needs, or do not have enough capabilities or financial resources to access and effectively use digital instruments.
The SME digital gap slows productivity growth and widens inequalities among firms. Ultimately, being that SMEs are the bulk of our economy, a massive adoption of digital technologies by them will generate a shift of aggregate productivity and well-being in our country and communities. However, to enable SMEs to catch up, investments in skills, organisational change, process innovation, new systems and business models are needed.
In this context, the Spice Tech Foundation has an initiative called Digitalization for SMEs (Di4SME) which intends to promote knowledge sharing and learning on how different types of SMEs can seize the benefits of digitalisation and the use of digital platforms (e-commerce and cloud computing) to facilitate their digital presence. The e-commerce platform can dramatically increasing SMEs’ reach in sourcing and selling to international market and cloud computing make it simpler and cheaper for them to implement and use online digital services to improve their business models in order to increase efficiency