Skopje, 18 December 2023 (MIA) – The readiness for digital adoption among the enterprises, especially and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is lagging behind despite North Macedonia’s progress in terms of its internet penetration rate, shows the analysis “Enabling environment for digital transformation of SMEs in North Macedonia” created by the Business Confederation of Macedonia.

Minister of Information Society and Administration, Azir Aliu, at Monday’s presentation of the analysis in Skopje, said the digital transformation is one of the key segments that the Ministry is working on, with digitization of businesses as a key link. The Minister noted that digitization doesn’t only refer to the creation of infrastructure, but, he said, at the same time it should advance in parallel with the human factor and the creation of digital processes.  

“Work is being done on five very important laws. Three of the five are related to the public administration, enabling public administration to work from home at most two times a week. Apart from the legal framework, we will also establish the necessary infrastructure. The second aspect is the digitization. Currently, we are working on the establishment of a working group on artificial intelligence in the public administration. The other two laws are directly related to the digital transformation,” said Aliu.

According to Iulia Drumea, Employers' Organizations Specialist at the International Labor Organization, the increase in digital transformation is creating many opportunities for growth and competitiveness of businesses.

“Many of them will have to change their business model and will have to define their production and its delivery,” said Drumea.

The President of the Business Confederation of Macedonia, Mile Boshkov, in terms of the digitization of SMEs, said that a considerable number of respondents said they could significantly improve their performances if they were to invest in digitization.

According to Boshkov, the reason why SMEs aren’t investing in digital transformation is probably due to the low knowledge of the benefits of digital transformation during the transformation of the country’s economy.

“I think that the level of education in entrepreneurship is at a very low level when it comes to digitization, the benefits of digitization, digital transformation, increase in competitiveness based on digitization,” said Boshkov.

The President of the Confederation said the sectors with the highest level of digitization are the financial sector, the IT sector, logistics and distribution.

Photo: MIA