Digital Innovation Hubs: SMEs’ Facilitators for Digital Innovation Projects, Marketing Communication Strategies and Business Internationalization

Abstract

In the context of the SME’s digital transition in the European Union (EU), scientific literature and practice started to give importance to the Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), considered to be a true help in testing before investing in digital technologies. The present study assesses an overview of DIHs and the services they provide, in order to identify possible gaps in their service portfolio. Adapting these services to the needs of EU’ economy could enable SMEs to improve their digital development and innovation capabilities by accessing better and faster the DIHs’ services. We analyzed data from the European Commission’s Smart Specialization Platform (S3P) by applying benchmark and multivariate clustering analysis. We focused on understanding what services do DIHs offer mainly for SMEs. We noticed that those related to marketing are not well represented, but have a great potential to be developed in the current digital transformation period. This study is practical, mapping the actual status of DIHs, their expertise and how they are nationally impacting SMEs in various industries and also is adding research to the scientific literature gaps on this subject. By leveraging the results of the study, decision makers can better understand the benefits offered by DIHs services and what countries have untapped opportunities for business and digital ecosystem growth. Research results provide valuable contributions toward the DIHs role in improving SMEs performance in the EU, but also shows where there is space to develop additional DIHs in specific sectors with specific services, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.