STAGEIT

Transforming SMEs into successful experience stagers

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The goals of the StageIt project are to develop knowledge about how SMEs can take advantage of experience staging as a means to improve their competitiveness and put this knowledge into practice in three SMEs. The point of departure is the recognition that technological innovation alone does not necessarily insure market acceptance. Instead, competitive environments require innovation that goes beyond technology to provide less tangible, but potentially more valuable, experiential benefits. The StageIt project is based on the notion of the “experience economy”, which is the fourth stage in the progression of economic value, preceded by extracting fungible commodities, manufacturing tangible goods and delivering intangible services. Each stage in this progression represents a superior value proposition, with higher potential for competitive advantage. StageIt’s industry-academia collaboration includes two universities and three SMEs that will benefit from transformation to experience staging. The academic participants contribute their knowledge, research findings and expertise and the industry participants contribute their practical experience prior to, during and following the transformation. The collaboration will make it possible to approach the transformation of SMEs into experience stagers from both a pragmatic and a theoretical point of view. Knowledge will be transferred within the consortium by staff secondments and workshops. Knowledge will be transferred to the broader academic and industrial communities through presentations in academic and industry conferences, academic publications and industry reports. The academic partners will raise the quality of their research on experiential design based on the data and insight gained. The industry partners will improve their RTD capability based on the knowledge gained from collaboration with the academic partners, and each other, and enhance their competitive advantage based on the transformations realized.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

An EU team has helped European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) utilise the concept of experience staging. Using surveys and longitudinal studies, the study yielded recommendations for businesses to implement a strategy of experience staging.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Technological innovation is a high priority for Europe. However, that alone does not guarantee market acceptance, and instead competitiveness may depend on less tangible factors such as experience staging.

The 'experience economy' is the fourth stage in the progression of economic value. The EU-funded project 'Transforming SMEs into successful experience stagers' (http://en.ru.is/rusb/crie/stageit (STAGEIT)) investigated how companies can improve competitiveness through experience staging. The project aimed to transfer knowledge from academia to the industrial partners via secondments.

Further achievements included analysis of the SMEs' potential for developing experience staging opportunities, and development of plans for implementing such opportunities. The five-member consortium ran over four years to April 2014.

The group studied and selected options for transforming each SME's services through experience staging. The work also involved three longitudinal studies, plus an online customer satisfaction survey.

Project research yielded two published journal papers, with a further five under review, plus two book chapters and a report. Project members gave numerous presentations.

The results of STAGEIT inspired European SMEs to incorporate experience staging into their strategies.