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The Digital Transformation of SMEs

image of The Digital Transformation of SMEs

Despite potentially tremendous benefits, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lag in the digital transformation. Emerging technologies, as diverse as they are, offer a range of applications for them to improve performance and overcome the size-related limitations they face in doing business. However, SMEs must be better prepared, and stakes are high. SMEs make the most of the industrial fabric in many countries and regions, they create jobs (most jobs sometimes) and are the cement of inclusive and sustainable societies. The SME digital gap has increased inequalities among people, places and firms, and there are concerns that the benefits of the digital transformation could accrue to early adopters, further broadening these inequalities. Enabling SME digitalisation has become a top policy priority in OECD countries and beyond. The report looks at recent trends in SME digital uptake, including in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It focuses on issues related to digital security, online platforms, blockchain ecosystems, and artificial intelligence. The report identifies opportunities, risks of not going digital, and barriers to adoption. It looks to concrete policy action taken worldwide to speed the SME transformation and raises a series of considerations to advance the SME digital policy agenda.

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Executive summary

The digitalisation of businesses has continued apace in recent years. Across sectors, firms of all sizes are increasingly equipping their staff with digital tools, although smaller firms do so more slowly, and some sectors do so more quickly. Digitalisation is multi-faceted as it involves the use of different technologies, serving different purposes, and requires a recombination of different strategic assets. Not all SMEs have the capacity to undertake this transformation. The smaller the firms, the less likely they are to adopt new digital practices, and the more likely they are to limit uptake to basic services. Overall, SME digitalisation is strongly related to the way value is created within the firm and the sector in which it operates.

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