Resent research of the Eurostat’s on the uptake of digital technologies by Europe’s SMEs again underpin the importance of the PRONTO project. While to one of the targets of the EU’s vision for digital transformation is that at least 90% of the EU’s SMEs should reach a basic level of digital intensity by 2030, the numbers are still lagging behind.
The uptake of digital technologies by businesses has the potential to improve services and products as well as to increase competitiveness. The crisis caused by COVID-19 has also shown that digitalisation is a crucial tool to improving the economic resilience of businesses.
In 2020, only 1% of EU enterprises with at least 10 persons employed reached a very high level of digital intensity while 14% reached a high level. The majority of the enterprises recorded low (46%) or very low (39%) levels. Compared to 2018, the Digital Intensity Index (DII) has seen a general improvement at the EU level, with increases at both very high (+5.0 percentage points (pp)) and high (+0.4 pp) levels.
Eurostat data show that 9% of the EU’s large enterprises had a very high DII and 42% a high level, while only 2% of medium-sized companies registered a very high-intensity level and one-quarter (25%) a high DII. Only 0.4% of small enterprises reached a very high digital intensity, with only 12% scoring a high DII.
Almost half of the medium (47%) and small (46%) size enterprises showed a low level of digital intensity.
Read the full article here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20211029-1
