On 24 September 2021, University of Bedfordshire business school professors, in close collaboration with Great Manchester Chamber of Commerce, facilitated a virtual focus group discussion with UK SMEs on supporting digital transformation. It was carried out as part of an EU funded Erasmus+ DigiVip project ‘Building Virtual Learning Platforms for Environmentally-friendly Digital Transformation Management’.

The event was organised by Mr Lewis, Head of Membership & Commercial in Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce. The session was moderated by Professor Yanqing Duan with contributions from Professor Ram Ramanathan.

DigiVip aims to support digital transformation of SMEs by developing a digital transformation management curriculum and learning materials with a focus on "environmental sustainability" standards. The project is a partnership between Istanbul University (Lead partner, Turkey), University of Bedfordshire (UK), Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce (UK), Fachhochschule Bielefeld (Germany), and two business partners in Turkey (Istanbul Maden Ve Metaller Ihracatci Birlikleri and Bizpark Bilisim San. Tic. Ltd. Sti.).

The focus group brought together participants of seven SME businesses from a variety of sectors including digital construction, educational technology, electronics manufacturing and training. The businesses in attendance range from 9 to 80 employees and all had been in business for a minimum of 11 years (with the longest standing business in the group being established 29 years ago).

The interactive discussion focused on issues related to ‘understand digital transformation, use of new technologies, human resource issues, green skills needs, skills needs for curriculum design and training development’. The interesting insight into the challenges and opportunities within Digital Transformation Management provides better knowledge and understanding on training needs of UK SMEs and will enable the project to develop more relevant and effective education and training programmes on digital transformation management.

DigiVip UK teams in University of Bedfordshire and Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce would like to thank all participants for their involvement with this focus group and their valuable contributions.

For more information about the project, please contact professor Yanqing Duan yanqing.duan@beds.ac.uk or visit: Current projects - DigiVIP