Internationalization and digitalization: technologies at work for SMEs to expand and succeed in foreign markets

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the internationalization and differentiation strategies applied by SME's in Italy, the current level of adoption of business digitalization and technological innovation and how the Italian startup ecosystem could help SME's to speed up the adoption of these technologies to improve internationalization, with particular attention to the food industry. As a result of the digital revolution of the last decades, multiple startup districts flourished across Italy. The digital districts require a well-balance variety of actors and functions to connect the historical know-how that comes from well-establish industries in Italy and the increasing need of internationalization tools that those industries are not able to integrate by themselves. The aim of this thesis is to try to understand which could be the right methods to connect well-established industry with decades of experience in their field with new startups that try to create channels for them to help the growth of internationalization, creating a favorable condition for the development of new business culture that’s incline towards innovation.