SMEs and experience staging
Technological innovation is a high priority for Europe. However, that alone does not guarantee market acceptance, and instead competitiveness may depend on less tangible factors such as experience staging. The 'experience economy' is the fourth stage in the progression of economic value. The EU-funded project 'Transforming SMEs into successful experience stagers' (STAGEIT) investigated how companies can improve competitiveness through experience staging. The project aimed to transfer knowledge from academia to the industrial partners via secondments. Further achievements included analysis of the SMEs' potential for developing experience staging opportunities, and development of plans for implementing such opportunities. The five-member consortium ran over four years to April 2014. The group studied and selected options for transforming each SME's services through experience staging. The work also involved three longitudinal studies, plus an online customer satisfaction survey. Project research yielded two published journal papers, with a further five under review, plus two book chapters and a report. Project members gave numerous presentations. The results of STAGEIT inspired European SMEs to incorporate experience staging into their strategies.
Keywords
Experience staging, SMEs, technological innovation, competitiveness, experience economy