SME — huge digital potential of the economy

In the entire history of independence, no one has ever helped small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine. If, for example, large companies and individual businessmen had their own representatives in parliament, a powerful lobby in the antimonopoly and regulatory authorities, or protection from large business associations like the EBA or ACC, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs did not have such advantages.

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No one defended their interests within the country, lobbied them on international markets, and created favorable conditions for the export of goods and services produced by small and medium-sized businesses. When the Ukrainian authorities “knocked out” some export quotas on the Western markets, they went to the largest companies. Moreover, large businesses determined in which sectors of the economy the state would lobby for export quotas, and the intergovernmental delegations that established such cooperation necessarily included representatives or even owners of the largest Ukrainian agricultural holdings, metallurgical enterprises, or food manufacturers.

The only reason to talk about small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine was any innovations at the level of tax legislation. When it was necessary to increase excises that relate to the activities of small and medium-sized businesses. Or, when it was possible to introduce some additional regulation, any special rules that would create difficulties for doing business. Such rules and difficulties were usually created so that officials could manually solve them for money. Thus, the rules of the game were created, under which business developed against the wishes of officials. Some entrepreneurs say that this is the strength and competitiveness of Ukrainian small and medium-sized businesses. Only in order to simply work, he needed to demonstrate miracles of ingenuity. And he reached his consumer already hardened in battles with the state. That is, the main competitive battles unfolded not on the market, but even before entering it. And the most persistent, the most inventive, and the most creative reached the real activity. For them, some ordinary competition for the attention of the consumer was a piece of cake.

And only recently there has been a certain shift in communication between the state and SMEs. It was not tax innovations that came to the fore, but the digitalization of the economy and public services. In particular, positive trends can be noted in the field of interaction between business and the state through the Diya. Business platform.

Another good example is the organization of tender procedures through the services of the Prozorro system. And some other good and not-so-good solutions. It is only worth noting that many of these initiatives took place not thanks to the initiative of the state, but more often even in spite of it.

Everyone remembers the scandals and resistance that accompanied the launches of each service of the Prozorro system. Not only were these services launched with grant money from Western anti-corruption organizations, but almost nothing was spent on them from the state budget. Also, at all levels, the introduction of services caused such resistance that sometimes it reached whole massive PR campaigns.

Of course, this is not enough. After all, the digitalization of the economy is not only tender procedures or public services. This is the construction of an all-Ukrainian infrastructure for business interaction with each other based on uniform standards, rules and policies, a data exchange infrastructure that will meet the highest security standards, common national business services, and much more. This infrastructure should be available to every entrepreneur, it should quickly adapt to any challenges, and be flexible in development.

The philosophy of open source software is ideal for creating and developing such an infrastructure. Open-source allows not only to use of the world’s best practices in the creation of applications and services but also can ensure the continuous improvement of existing solutions according to any new inputs or challenges that the developer community faces. By the way, the same Prozorro platform that made it possible to build a tender system is one of the most successful examples of using open-source in Ukraine. The system can be constantly improved, expanded, and introduced to new services while remaining relevant.

But there are two pieces of news.

The bad news is that we are only at the beginning of this journey. There is more than one year of work and implementation ahead. We will definitely face the resistance of some officials who will lose their source of income due to the digitalization of the economy. They will be against it, but they will be in the minority.

On the other hand, there is good news as well. Now Ukraine is in the same situation that our medium and small businesses were in before. In order to only be able to stay on the world map, she needs to show miracles of ingenuity and make a giant leap in development.

On the other hand, there is good news as well. Now Ukraine is in the same situation that our medium and small businesses were in before. In order to only be able to stay on the world map, she needs to show miracles of ingenuity and make a giant leap in development. And there is hope that it will fit into global competition already strong enough to win a huge market share.