According to the European Commission’s DESI 2023 report on digitalisation in industry, only 33% of European companies are highly digitalised. According to the World Economic Forum, the lack of digital skills is one of the main barriers to the digital transition, affecting 54% of companies. However, studies show that digitalisation, when adequately implemented, has the potential to increase the productivity of industrial companies by up to 25%. One should consider it a strategic and disruptive initiative for companies in the European industrial business fabric. In the Portuguese case, and according to the Statistics Portugal (INE), the digitalisation of industry has the potential to increase national GDP by up to 10 billion euros by 2030.
The digital transition in the industry is an inevitable need to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly dynamic global market. In this sense, the creation of the Industry Club emerges as a crucial initiative to leverage innovation and digital excellence in Portugal, towards the improvement and specialisation of the Portuguese economy, to keep up with current economic trends.
What is the Industry Club?
The Industry Club is an open platform, promoted by NOS, COTEC, INESC TEC, Kaizen Institute, and Porto Business School, to promote the sharing of good practices, training and networking between decision makers and managers, experts and top researchers from companies with an established presence in Portugal. The initiative aims to improve the visibility of existing opportunities, disseminate success stories, foster cross-innovation between industrial sectors and contact points that can support companies on their journey towards digital excellence.
INESC TEC, as an interface entity between academia and industry, plays a crucial role in boosting the Industry Club. The Institute will further explore social responsibility to advance the digital and sustainable transition of the industry, fostering collaboration and coopetition between the various actors of the Portuguese business fabric.
This collaboration will include not only industrial, technological companies and specialised consultants, but will also echo the needs of the sector in terms of public policies – with government entities and academia institutions -, thus creating a robust and integrated ecosystem of digital innovation.
Moreover, INESC TEC will benefit from a privileged channel to disseminate, throughout the sector, the portfolio of differentiated services to support innovation and training – leveraged in science -, as well as events and opportunities for collaboration in national and European consortia.
The Importance of Cooperation and Coopetition
As problems in the industry become increasingly complex, it is essential to involve and integrate diverse skills and technological solutions to solve, in an integrated manner and with limited risk, said multidisciplinary problems. This leads to an extreme need for cooperation between national entities, but also to enhance coopetition between companies naturally competing.
Coopetition is a word that gained notoriety after the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November 2023, and was a major theme at the Davos Forum in January 2024. This word combines cooperation and competition and translates into a strategy where competing companies collaborate in specific areas to achieve mutual benefits, e.g., technological development, brand creation with global impact, resource sharing and/or joint innovation. In the current context, characterised by VUCA characteristics (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) and BANI behaviours (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear and Incomprehensible), this approach becomes even more relevant to overcome the challenges of competitiveness imposed by the growth of emerging markets, like the Asian ones. We can find successful cases of coopetition in highly demanding sectors, like the automotive industry, where collaboration between competing companies provides agility and resilience, allowing companies to adapt quickly to market changes and technological advances.
Industry Club Goals and Benefits
To leverage the digital transition in the Portuguese industry, and to achieve the expected economic growth, the Industry Club seeks to meet the following specific objectives:
1 – Sharing of good practices.
The Industry Club will facilitate the exchange of experiences and knowledge among its members, allowing them to learn from each other and adopt industry’s best practices. Good dissemination of proven practices can help mitigate the risks inherent in the digital transition and accelerate the adoption of efficient and innovative digital solutions.
2 – Training and Development
Provide exclusive access to industry news and studies, events, hands-on workshops, and technical visits to leading companies (lighthouses). These learning opportunities will help empower managers and decision-makers with the skills needed to lead the digital transition in their organisations. IiLab – INESC TEC Industry and Innovation Laboratory will play a vital role to boost advanced training in industry 4.0, at various levels of the organisational structure.
3 – Networking and Collaboration:
The Club will promote meetings and events that allow the creation of a network of contacts between professionals in the sector. Effective networking will generate strategic partnerships and new business opportunities, boosting collaborative innovation based on a Portuguese business fabric increasingly endowed with start-ups with high potential and impact on the industry.
Briefly speaking, the Industry Club seeks to transform the industry in Portugal. By promoting digitalisation, companies can increase their operational efficiency, reduce costs, improve the quality of products and services, and adapt more quickly to market changes. The collaboration between NOS, COTEC, INESC TEC, Kaizen Institute and PBS is a clear example of how strategic partnerships can generate tangible benefits for the entire economy.
INESC TEC’s role is particularly important in this context: thanks to a unique position in the market, knowledge of the domain, and a network of technological infrastructures, it can facilitate the dissemination of the latest scientific and technological innovations in the industrial sector. In addition, the greater visibility of the success stories that INESC TEC may present – in terms of industry-related projects – will inspire other companies to follow the same path, creating a positive multiplier effect in the country’s economy.
By António Almeida, Business Developer at TEC4Industry
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