Facilitating product development between ICT sector and other economic sectors in Estonia

Within the framework of the ITL development project “Facilitating Product Development in the ICT Sector”, one of the goals was to develop a model for facilitating product development for the smart application of ICT in other economic areas. Regarding the implementation of the model, it was expected that it would help IT companies to move from selling software development hours to developing and selling products and services in cooperation with other sectors and introducing various new business models.

Baltic Innovation Agency piloted the new cooperation model together with other industry experts and ITL representatives piloted within 5 sectors (wooden house, machinery, plastics, electronics, woodworking). It was important that ITL could use the model independently in the future and integrate it with the services provided to their cluster´s members.

During the development project, four workshops were organized for five cooperation sectors:

The following methods were tested within the project: matchmaking, speed-dating, case study, brainstorming, company visit.

Based on the workshops, the Baltic Innovation Agency also prepared four cross-sectoral product development ideas (proof-of-concept).