Spain – SME Digitalisation Plan

• July 24, 2023
• Andrew

The Spanish Digitalization Plan (2021-2025) is an ambitious public program that includes a set of measures, reforms and investments aimed at promoting more sustainable and inclusive growth from a digital point of view. Among these measures are, among others, the strengthening of digital skills of all citizens, the extension of adequate digital coverage for 100 percent of the population or the deployment of 5G, among many others.

One of the main characteristics of the Spanish economy is that 98.99% of all companies are SMEs. Spain, despite showing a positive evolution in the main international digitization indicators, has not made the same progress in the integration of digital technology by small companies.

The drive to digitize SMEs is highly conditioned by the availability of financing, as well as by the lack of training for the acquisition of digital tools to meet the new technological challenges.

The Plan has a total investment of 4,656 million euros, with 14 proposals distributed among four lines of action:

•     Basic digitalization for SMEs.
•     Support for change management.
•     Disruptive innovation and digital entrepreneurship.
•     Support for sectorial digitalization.

In addition to improving the basic digitalisation of SMEs, the Plan envisages boosting disruptive innovation (Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data) to seize the opportunities of the data-driven economy through scalable programmes to be deployed through public-private partnerships.

The main objective of the Government is that this plan can reach one and a half million SMEs in a period of five years, which represents approximately half of the total number of companies with less than 250 workers in the country. The program is partly supported by EU Next Generation funds.