Digitalization is a very current topic in the Alpine region and gradually expanding into various fields. It is already widely used in business areas and becoming a part of everyday life, also in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 
This is due to various initiatives that help strengthen cooperation between businesses and research institutions. The integration of the digitalization is reflected in the development of distributed systems, smart factories, machine vision, blockchain technologies, digital services for education and public administration, development of digital competencies, promotion of innovation, and creation of new business models. 
The overall goal of the digitalization is to facilitate businesses of different sizes and to make easier their management and production processes by combining natural, financial and digital assets.

This report is devoted to the mapping of the actual state of play and needs with regard to the digitalization at small and medium-sized enterprises belonging to value chains with special focus on the use of natural fibers in the Alpine Space. The report has the following goals:

• Mapping of knowledge available on digitalization relevant for SMEs, namely understanding the state-of-the-art of the digitalization “ecosystem” and its potentials;
• Learning the current status also of the digitalization level of SMEs, to which extent they already apply digitalization and whether they want to introduce new tools and approaches in their business activities;
• Revealing constrains, also from the education and training perspective, hampering the full digitalization as well as key factors enabling the capacity of digital adoption along the related VCs;
• Analyzing the existing remedies with a special focus on natural fiber-based VCs.

Target groups of this report are SMEs, business support organizations, regional and urban developers, policy makers, members of the Action Groups of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region

For more informations about the Smart SMEs project: https://www.alpine-region.eu/projects/smart-smes