Sarajevo, December 04, 2022: Twenty-seven owners and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises from the metal, wood and service sector worked with digitalisation experts for three days and analysed potential solutions and ways to improve their digital operations. The second series of Digital Consultancy Days ”Collaborathon”, which were designed to offer top-notch training and mentoring regarding the use of IT solutions for more efficient business operations of companies, took place on Trebević.

”Collaborathon” is part of the project ”Innovation and Digitalisation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which is implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The goal of the project is to strengthen the digital ecosystem and raise awareness about the opportunities resulting from digitalisation and development of innovative mind-set of small and medium-sized enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, said Mirna Mekić, GIZ Communication Specialist.

The event is based on solutions that are tailored to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. The participants got guidelines on how to prepare a brief presentation about the digitalisation of their business operations and during the event they worked with mentors on optimising their digitalisation concept. After having planned the best options for their further digital development, the last part of the event enabled company representatives to present their concept to interested IT companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina during B2B meetings, i.e. during one-on-one discussions. As a result, IT companies were able to obtain information about the needs of companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and market requirements and apply some of their existing solutions or develop new ones.

Senad Džananović, Senior Manager of PWC in Bosnia and Herzegovina and President of the Association for Digital Transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UDTBiH), which organised this event, pointed out the following: ”This year, we gathered a larger number of companies than last year. Companies have again shown how valuable consultancy and digital expert support are in order to shape ideas and issues into a concrete request and have a better picture of the relevant priorities in terms of digitalisation. Last year, we had a very nice best practice, when a small start-up company created a product that has already been put to use in the meantime. I believe that these digital consultations will also result in solutions that will be implemented in the operations of companies in order for them to better manage their processes, be more efficient and increase their profit”.

Many companies are searching for a way to improve user experience, improve product or service characteristics and optimise the production process. Digital technologies, digitalisation and digital transformation are solutions for many problems that SMEs are facing. However, many studies show that owners and managers are very frequently unaware of the importance of digital technologies for business operations, and even if they are aware of it, they are facing the problem that they do not know where to start or what exactly they need. ”Collaborathon” aims to strengthen the digital ecosystem in Bosnia and Herzegovina by bringing key actors together.

”Companies participating in the ”Collaborathon” have confirmed research findings of a world-renowned consultancy firm Gartner from 2021 according to which 90% of managers worldwide know that digitalisation and digital transformation are necessary in order to remain competitive, but only 15% of them know how to achieve that. We had such a situation. On the third day of this event we see significant progress achieved by companies that strategically adapted their vision, connected it to their processes and products, identified ways how they can improve and presented their already well-defined terms of reference for the national IT sector and discussed cooperation”, said Aleksandar Mastilović, digitalisation expert.

One of the participants, Naida Baručija, Project Manager of the company Glovis from Zenica, which mainly produces children’s playgrounds, said the following: ”We applied because we are aware of the need for a digital transformation at our company. During this event, we got lots of good ideas and solutions that we can use to achieve this in the future. We have understood that the first step is a self-assessment of capacities of our company in terms of hardware and software resources that we currently have at our disposal. With the assistance of an IT expert, we understood how to get from point A, where we currently stand, to point B, i.e. how to improve our business operations and how to implement the digital transformation in the best and least painful way”.

3 min

05/12/2022