In 2024, Slovakia along with other CEE countries celebrate the 20th anniversary of its accession to the EU and transatlantic structures, which are great milestones for the country. Membership in the EU brings numerous opportunities for local businesses which make the best use of the single market, enabling the free flow of capital, services and goods, or using the various financial schemes which help businesses to invest in digitalization and new technologies.
Making innovation a cornerstone of the European economy is indeed important if we want to close the gap on global frontrunners. While creating a strong and functional ecosystem, many factors come into play. It requires promoting innovative solutions and their potential, as well as entrepreneurial mindset, attitudes and social values, closer cooperation between business and academia, but also tackling the lack of capital and talent, which hinders faster development of the innovation ecosystem.
EU 2030: A Digital & Innovation Powerhouse
The European Commission has adopted the ambitious plan of becoming a global digital frontrunner by 2030. Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed that Commission will stick to this plan during its next tenure and see digitization as one of the main engines behind further economic growth and key pillar of competitiveness of European businesses. Now governments need to implement national plans consisting of needed reforms and investments that are crucially important for fulfilling the European goals. From the CEE point of view, digitization of SMEs and smooth implementation of EU digital regulatory packages are of high importance. Investments into R&D, support of the entire start-up ecosystem and the growth of new industrial sectors like development and production of semiconductors will have the main impact on Europe’s future.
Scaling with AI: Unlocking New Frontiers of Business Growth
Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the business landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities for growth, efficiency, and innovation. From a business perspective, it is insufficient to integrate AI tools into business operations just because of all the buzz around us, but on the contrary there must be a sound analysis on return on investment. There are indeed different approaches for introducing AI into existing business processes. Therefore, it is important that companies know how to prepare AI Adoption Strategy based on their business goals and data availability. This strategy defines business processes where AI tools will be implemented, suggest the most suitable tools, address the process of data preparation, define clear metrics for assessing AI impact and most importantly defines methods to calculate return on investments, considering both tangible and intangible benefits. Businesses must also examine potential risks associated with AI adoption, including ethical aspects.
Boosting Digital Resilience: SMEs adapting to New Realities
As digital assets are becoming more critical, SMEs are increasingly aware of the importance of cybersecurity measures to protect their data and customer information. Boosting awareness of cybersecurity among SMEs is essential, as these businesses are often targeted by threats in the online environment and may lack the resources for robust cybersecurity measures. During the session, we will discuss the strategies which could help raise cybersecurity awareness among SMEs from the perspective of small businesses, big companies, governmental initiatives and showcase real-world case studies.
Addressing the financing and investment gap
One of the key challenges for CEE businesses are available funding opportunities to support business’ growth. Persistent investment gap in the region, ineffective financing model, absence of venture capital for startups and entrepreneurs can generate significant negative consequences such as slow growth, competitive disadvantage, risk of failure, innovation limitation for the CEE from a long-term perspective. Moreover, in the CEE, banks finance 90% of its economy, which is higher than the EU average reaching 75%. We will open the discussion on how to address these challenges, how the innovation supporting financing model should be set up, or what the role of different sector players could be.
Inspire. Connect. Innovate.
SAPIE Forum celebrates the creative power of innovation, to demonstrate the strength and potential of the local innovation ecosystem.