Strategies for digitalization for high-tech SME were topic at the 1st IVAM High-Tech Summit

The kickoff of the new annual conference “IVAM High-Tech Summit” by the IVAM Microtechnology Network was a great success. More than 80 international representatives from the IT and micro- and nanotechnology industry met on March 23, 2017 in Dortmund to discuss the importance and strategies of digitalization.
 
At first the representatives of the large scale industries presented their digitalization strategies. They offered insight into the current developments in their companies and their demands regarding digitalization towards their suppliers. ELMOS illustrated how production and supplier chains change and presented examples for new applications in the automotive industry. Evonik showed digitalization in the chemistry industry and emphasized that this trend, which is not a new one, nevertheless speeds up change processes immensely. Siemens Healthcare addressed digitalization in the healthcare industry and introduced, amongst other things, an e-health platform.
 
Afterwards representatives from IT companies presented suitable technologies and solution approaches for SME. Conclusion of this session and their recommendations for SME was that they should take small steps towards digitalization: “start now, but start small”.
 
The third session gave attention to business models and showed how and where profit can be realized in the future. For this a little fantasy and partly rethinking is advised. The experts stressed that digitalization is profitable to SME too, provides them with advantages against their competitors and will be noticeable on the Return on Invest sooner or later.
 
All of these topics were picked up again in the concluding panel discussion. The importance especially for SME would be to cooperate with others because the challenges of digitalization can be too difficult for smaller businesses to handle alone. The discussion addressed other, also critical aspects, e.g. a possible loss of jobs or data security.
 
All participants were asked to self-assess their knowledge regarding digitalization previous to the conference to enhance discussions during networking breaks in between sessions. About a third of the companies has just started to engage in this pressing matter. One third had already launched first projects and the last third were IT experts.
 
The next IVAM High-Tech Summit is scheduled to be held in spring 2018 and will be, again joint with the Annual General Meeting of the Microtechnology Network, picking up on a current topic.