E-commerce for regional development
SMEs constitute the driving force of the European economy, particularly for regional development and growth in Less favoured regions (LFRs) of Europe. These are usually isolated areas geographically and consequently less developed with poor business performance indices. E-commerce constitutes an effective means for addressing the geographical limitations that the LFRs present. Urged by this, the LAURA project offered SMEs a key opportunity to play an important role to overcome current difficulties in LFRs. By providing the means and structures such as e-commerce zones, the project supports European SMEs to exploit e-business and the Internet. One of the primary project results was a comprehensive report on regional analysis results in collaboration with the Applied Research and Communications (ARC) Fund. The ARC Fund is one of the leading Bulgarian non-government organisations aiming to advance the development of a modern knowledge-based society. Their undertaking involved exploitation of existing knowledge and a direct survey study on regional companies representing different sectors such as agriculture, food processing, timber, wood-processing, furniture and tourism. Analysis results covered all business aspects including technical issues of industrial innovation, as well economic and organisational aspects. They also supported the assessment of the regional business environment with regard to interregional e-commerce development on the basis of adaptive zones. Key regional priorities were identified, recommendations for measures for regional actions were elaborated and training needs of the organisations were addressed. Focusing also on the analysis of technology and market-related trends, a number of reports were produced in relation to seven key sectors for six south-central Bulgarian regions. From agriculture to construction, these reports presented the size and structure of the sectors in a region. Additionally, the main companies and their characteristics as well as major markets and factors favouring or hampering market performance of the companies in the sector were shown. This provided the cornerstones for setting priorities of the innovation strategy in each sector and contributed to the collaboration between the sector and the research community.
