Digitization offensive 2025: New opportunities for Lower Austria's SME!

Digitization offensive 2025: New opportunities for Lower Austria's SME!

On January 7, 2025, funding for the digitization offensive SME.Digital was released, as the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy (BMAW) and the Austria Chamber of Commerce (WKO) announced. This decision follows the complete exploitation of the funds in 2024. "The reinforcement of the funding is a crucial step to help small and medium -sized companies (SMEs) to promote their digitization projects," said Wolfgang Ecker, President of the Chamber of Commerce in Lower Austria. During the last tender from May to September 2024, 579 consultations and 96 implementation projects were requested from Lower Austrian companies, which underlines the high demand.

funding opportunities for companies

The two main promotion programs, SMEDigital "Classic" and SME.Digital & Green, offer tailor -made support. The classic measures accompany SME from planning to the implementation of their digitization projects. At the same time, the "green" special rail enables companies to implement resource -saving processes and to develop sustainably. In a current evaluation it was found that since the program started in 2017, over 25,000 consulting and implementation initiatives have been funded with a budget of around 25 million euros, which illustrates the importance of these programs in order to increase the competitiveness of SMEs. The aim is to support both digital and ecological transformation projects, which is of great relevance for the business location.

In addition, an investment of a total of 35 million euros in the digital and sustainable transformation of SMEs was announced for the period from 2024 to 2026. This commitment aims to increase innovative strength and promote green change. With a focus on digital strategy, resource optimization and resilient business models, SMEs should be able to react to the new challenges. Further information and funding applications can be found on the official website of SMEsdigital, as well as the exact details of the projects and the application options.