Analyzing digital transition in small and medium sized companies in Spain

Abstract

Digitalization and digital transformation are molding the world’s economies and new disruptive innovations are born frequently. This megatrend brings challenges and opportunities that are common for many businesses and economies, but also ones that are sector and country specific. This thesis focused on Spanish SMEs digitalization by elaborating on three big questions: What are the digitalization challenges Spain should focus on to support its SMEs? How is the EU supporting Spain in digitalization? What are the Spain’s plans to support its SMEs in digitalization? This way the reader can get a good understanding of the Spain’s governmental actions on defining the challenges and providing support for its SMEs in different business sectors. The four cornerstones of digitalization in Europe are: population’s digital skills, connectivity and digital infrastructure, public administration services, and integration of digital technologies in businesses, which all are closely related to each other. Evidently, the integration of digital technologies in businesses is directly related to digital transition of SMEs, but all the other aspects are potentially just as important as they are preconditions for integration of digital technologies to happen in the first place. In fact, they all need to be examined to explain the SMEs’ situation. The SMEs are emphasized in this study because of the Spain’s business fabric’s composition, and because they seem to be in the middle of the overall digitalization of the country. The documents that were analyzed and used to write this content analysis thesis can be found on the official websites of the European Commission and the Spanish Government. With the help of the EU, Spain has recognized its main challenges of adapting its businesses for the modern digital era. Some of those challenges are, shortage of ICT competent workforce, and lack of disruptive technologies implemented in companies. The smaller the company, the less digital technologies it has in use, which adversely affects the company’s e-commerce turnover and overall sustainability. Spain is taking a wide range of measures under the public and private sector collaborating Digital Spain 2025 plan, and other programs, to overcome their challenges. The EU supports Spain’s digitalization plans by financing them through NextGenEU programs. Timeframe of writing this thesis extended from November 2021 to May 2022.