Background information

This measure is no longer active.

With the aim of alleviating bottlenecks related to industrial digitalisation and automation, which has been a bottleneck for Estonian economic development, a support measure was developed to raise manufacturing and mining companies' awareness and capability of digitalisation. The measure is financed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and provided by the Enterprise Estonia (called the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency as of 2022).

Content of measure

The measure consists of a grant which is provided for a company to assess its readiness and potential for digitalisation and automation and steps to take to develop their production processes. The provider of such diagnostic tool (digital diagnostic provider) can be chosen by the grant recipient. The service consists of interviews, seminars, learning the current processes and procedures at the company, analysing the data and documentation. Based on the gathered information, a thorough report is compiled bringing out the potential for the specific company to go more digital/automatic, which are the steps to be taken, and what are the costs and profits.

Digital diagnostics must include all the following:

• An overview of the bottlenecks in the strategic management and business model of the company (production planning and human resources, quality system and product development management, procurement process, delivery process, product and semi-finished product and raw material return and after-sales processes).
• An assessment of the priority of solving the bottlenecks.
• Estimating the cost of solutions for digitalisation and automation of bottlenecks.
• An assessment of the payback period and the impact on the economic performance of the solutions proposed by the bottlenecks.

The maximum amount of the grant depends on the sales revenue of the business year preceding the application for the grant of enterprise. If the enterprise’s sales revenue for the previous year is the following:

• €200,000–1 million, then the grant is €5,000.
• €1–5 million, then the grant is €10,000.
• Over €5 million, then the grant is €15,000.

The maximum share of the project cost is 70% and at least 30% must be self-financing.

The total budget available is €1.1 million since October 2018 until December 2021.

Use of measure

Between November 2018 and May 2020, 116 companies received the grant. The average size of the grant during the period was €9,987.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Sector specific set of companies	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Company / Companies Other social actors (e.g. NGOs)	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Unknown

Involvement

Unknown

Views and reactions

Unknown

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 01 May 2019: EAS-i 2018. a tegevusaruanne (Activity report of EAS 2018) (www.eas.ee)
• 01 April 2020: EAS-i 2020. a tegevusaruanne (Activity report of EAS 2020) (www.eas.ee)