P1 Competitive economy
1.3. More exports by the Central Baltic companies to new markets
Central Baltic
01.09.2015 - 28.02.2019
€2 320 879
€1 814 790
ENDED. The ICT SMEs within the Central Baltic countries are in a challenging situation due to a very small size of fiercely competed domestic markets making it necessary to penetrate into new markets. Through joining resources it will be possible to elevate branding, join and jointly use available resources for market studies and promotion as well as establish constellations eligible for further expansion in the new markets.
The project ICT Meta Cluster aims to create a complete value chain offering 400 ICT-oriented companies in Estonia, Latvia and Sweden resources to generate first sales of their products and services at new markets, to expand the sales within the respective countries and regions, and finally to prepare for further expansion of the business activities.
By the end of the project, the ICT Meta Cluster is a validated ecosystem for establishment and further business expansion into new markets. The participating SMEs have an access and are familiar with the target markets’ export analysis, have received match-making results for their product in the target markets, have performed necessary adaptations of products and services as well as received support with export/import regulations. Finally, at least nine sales at target markets have been achieved.
Fiber Optic Valley AB
Country: SE
Partner budget: 748.263 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 561.197 EUR ERDF
Acreo Swedish ICT AB
Country: SE
Partner budget: 831.304 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 623.478 EUR ERDF
Latvian IT Cluster
Country: LV
Partner budget: 352.861 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 299.932 EUR ERDF
Estonia ICT Cluster
Country: EE
https://e-estonia.com/meet-the-industry/ict-cluster/ and www.itl.ee
Partner budget: 388.451 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 330.183 EUR ERDF
Expected results
The overall ecosystem for SME business expansion into new markets brings: a toolbox for setting up and carrying out export accessible for European communities, partner clusters and SMEs, a strengthened cooperation in Central Baltic and with SME clusters (e.g. Enterprise Europe Network, TCI Network and others) as well as within cross-disciplinary subjects, contribution to social, economic and ecological sustainability through ICT, services and businesses.
Long-term effects after the project end: SMEs using the ecosystem are leaders in expansion on new markets, More SMEs established at the target markets, Established SMEs expand further into neighbouring regions and prepared for global development.
ICT is a prerequisite for improving the energy efficiency dramatically and contributing to ecological sustainability, an indispensable tool in the provisioning of “always connected” experience and consequently future health and education means, contributing to social sustainability as well as in assisting to shape the strategies for employing existing resources optimally so that a beneficial economic balance can be achieved on a longer term contributing to economic sustainability. Specifically, when selecting partners, the project will always ensure that their offer (product or/and service) will contribute to sustainable development in at least two of the three dimensions.