How can the state help shift the digitalisation of businesses
The successful transformation of the Slovak economy into digital transformation is one of the most important preconditions for maintaining jobs and economic growth in our country.
However, according to the Digital Economy and Society Index (hereinafter referred to as DESI), Slovakia is on the tail of Europe (22nd out of 27).
The low rate of digitization prevails especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (hereinafter referred to as SMEs), which is also the cause of the decline in the country's overall digital competitiveness. The forthcoming calls from the Recovery and Resilience Plan and the European Digital Innovation Centers project from the Digital Europe Program can help our economy.
The recovery and resilience plan is one of the greatest opportunities to transform your business and increase your competitiveness through external financing. The effective implementation of these challenges and projects will be key to its successful implementation.
The participants of the round table, which took place under the auspices of the League for Digital Growth in cooperation with the AmCham organization, agreed on this. The discussion was opened by Ivan Štefanec, Member of the European Parliament, Ambassador of the League for Digital Growth, who emphasized the need to accelerate the digitalisation of the economy, as up to a quarter of the global economic product is already being realized in the digital environment.
“Legislators, researchers, academia and employers must join forces in the digital transformation of the economy.”
Within the Recovery Plan, the Science, Research, Innovation and Digital Slovakia components in particular will be an important source of funding. Anna Brziaková from Civitta explained who she is suitable for and pointed out the need to draw funds in a systematic way.
“The Recovery Plan offers comprehensive funding opportunities for digitization, whether for SMEs, for which digitization is a tool to increase efficiency and competitiveness, or for research and development of digital technologies for innovative enterprises. Together with other grant instruments of the European Commission, it represents a way to fundamentally support the growth of companies. For companies that want to use grants effectively, it is very important to map the available opportunities and select them with regard to the long-term corporate strategy and analysis of the potential of digitization.”
In practice today, the so-called One-stop-shop, i.e. a centralized portal, thanks to which companies would be able to orient themselves more quickly in a complex complex of challenges, projects and support schemes created by the European Union or the state. Administrative obstacles and public procurement in particular are frequent obstacles to companies applying for public resources. The recovery plan has the advantage of operating in an administratively simpler mode than traditional Eurofunds, focusing on the performance aspect.
Michal Číž, Head of the Digital Innovation Department at the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatics (MIRRI), presented other possibilities for state support through the Digital Europe program. It is the shortcomings in the field of digitization that SMEs see as the reason for the decline in the country's digital competitiveness and its slippages in indices such as DESI.
“Large companies can digitize and finance their processes independently of the state. However, small companies are unable to adapt to the changes brought about by large market leaders and thus lose their position (e.g. in the automotive industry). One of the strategic projects is the construction of European Digital Innovation Centers (EDIHs), which will provide services for SMEs, especially in the field of digital skills development, and link them to European infrastructures and their know-how. At the same time, their geographical distribution across Slovakia should reduce regional disparities in digital maturity.”
Rastislav Brenčič, CEO of 26House, continues by stating that small companies are no longer competitive, which can be a real problem for Slovakia, as SMEs employ more than 75 percent of workers. The lack of transparency in the redistribution of public resources, the low level of vision on the part of the state and also the lack of awareness of entrepreneurs about the key impact of the digital transformation on their competitiveness are also a problem.
“The state should, above all, improve communication: to actively examine the problems and needs in the field of digitization through representative samples of companies and only on the basis of the analysis of the statements to decide on the forms of support. The role of the state is not to distort the market environment through ill-considered subsidies, but to create a motivating ecosystem and purposefully support digitization, e.g. in the form of supercomputing or digital vouchers.”
One of the identified needs is a change in migration legislation, so that it is possible to bring digitally skilled workers from outside the EU to Slovakia and thus help to overcome the shortage of houses.
talent. Retraining courses focused mainly on jobs that are disappearing due to digitalisation can also help. However, a long-term solution is a fundamental reform of the education system, where digital skills should be a key element.
The League for Digital Growth is a project from the workshop of the Slovak Alliance for Innovative Economics (SAPIE), which has the ambition to create a coalition of actors in the digital economy in Central and Eastern Europe and to support economic growth in the region by connecting private sector needs. The Czech Union of Industry and Transport (SPCR), the Polish Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers (ZPP) and the Hungarian think-tank Századvég participated in the project within the region.
