Digital acceleration during the pandemic helped businesses grow and reach new customers in all corners of the world. In emerging Europe, where expansion is limited by the scale of domestic markets, the growth potential resulting from the unleashing of technology solutions is especially huge. Digital solutions have not only helped drive revenue, they have also enabled many industries to adapt and survive, as well as opening up untapped growth opportunities for businesses in the region. IT start-ups have been particularly active and engaged in the development of telemedicine, education could and cybersecurity services, among other areas.
Public and private investment
The pandemic and its aftermath also forced governments in the region to expedite the digitisation of public services, allowing citizens and businesses to interact with authorities. Moving more public services to the digital domain facilitated a boom in the ever-growing digital ecosystem as well as the creation of more digital businesses across the entire region.
The landscape of the digital economy across emerging Europe encompasses digital commerce (online retail spending on goods and services), ICT (the value of spending by governments and companies across all sectors on hardware, software, infrastructure, and related services), and offline spending on digital equipment (PC, smartphones, IT infrastructure, cloud, etc).
The recently launched Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) will also boost support in critical capacity areas in the coming years, including supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and will ensure the broad use of digital technologies across the economy and society, including through Digital Innovation Hubs.
As the region becomes more and more successful in the process of digitisation, an increasing number of young companies are becoming true digital champions as the following Digital Champions CEE TOP100 shows. Most of the digital champions are companies representing e-commerce, media and entertainment, cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, and Fintech.
A new generation
Although rising interest rates, the rise of the dollar to record levels and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have resulted in a decline in valuation affecting several CEE digital champions, it is not all doom and gloom.
Proof of market resilience is seen in the number of new digital champions. As many as 37 companies made their debut in this year’s ranking. Most were from the SaaS (16), Fintech (10) and e-commerce (6) areas. Estonia and the Czech Republic were the countries with the largest growth in the number of technology companies, up 60%. This proves that the region’s companies can create new value even in such difficult and uncertain times.
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