The European Commission inaugurated its “Integration of SMEs in global digital value chains” initiative. «The Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs and its flagship initiatives give a prominent role to the smart use of digital technologies as a key driver of competitiveness, innovation and growth. The developed ICT solutions help SMEs to connect better to larger enterprises and become part of industrial value chains which become more and more sophisticated and globalized», said Michel Catinat, Head of Unit, Key Enabling Technologies and Digital Economy, DG Enterprise & Industry, European Commission.
The initiative was launched by the European Commission in 2009 to help SMEs facilitate trade along digital value chains through a boost in the smart use of ICT and electronic data. These ICT solutions will set the principles for interoperability among different business processes and data exchange models in order to allow for seamless digital communication and data flows among business partners along industrial value chains. In the first phase the service is being offered to SMEs in the fashion (eBIZ), automotive (auto-gration), tourism (TOURISMlink), food (eFoodChain), transport and logistics (DiSCwise), and construction (Connect & Construct) sectors.
