数字服务如何助力中小企业和初创企业

TRELYSA LONG | AUGUST 2025 Digital services are the key to unlocking growth for small- and medium-sized enterprises intoday’s economy. They help firms overcome financial constraints, close skills gaps, and boostproductivity. Policymakers should incentivize SMEs to capitalize on those opportunities. KEY TAKEAWAYS SMEs tend to have fewer financial resources, face greater skills gaps, and have lowerproductivity, making it difficult to scale up. Digital services are the key to reducing, orpossibly even resolving, many of these barriers to growth. Internet platforms lower overall transaction costs for both buyers and sellers by reducingsearch costs, streamlining communication, and facilitating payments. As a result, theyhelp SMEs reach more customers. AI is boosting marketing performance for SMEs, helping them optimize ad campaigns,target the right customers, and generate content at scale. Generative AI is also boostingSMEs’ productivity. Strong human resources and operations capabilities are essential drivers of SME growthand competitiveness. Digital payroll systems, employee onboarding tools, and HRmanagement platforms play a critical role in these areas. E-commerce platforms are fundamentally reshaping how SMEs reach customers. Onaverage, 26 percent of small businesses and 34 percent of medium-sized businesses inOECD countries were actively making e-commerce sales in 2023. To incentivize SMEs’ adoption of digital services, policymakers should design targetedstrategies to reduce adoption barriers and expand access to critical digital tools. itif.org CONTENTS Key Takeaways ................................................................................................................. 1Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2Internet Platforms: Connecting SMall Businesses To Customers ............................................. 5Advertising and Marketing in the Digital Age Focus: AI Tools and Digital Platforms................... 6HR and Operations Transformation Focus: Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, andHR Tech .......................................................................................................................... 9E-commerce and Sales Enablement Focus: Website Hosting, Digital Platforms, and AIin Sales ......................................................................................................................... 10Digital Business Transformation: Case Studies ................................................................... 13Policy Recommendations................................................................................................. 14Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 15Endnotes ....................................................................................................................... 16 INTRODUCTION Digital services are the key to improving productivity, innovation, and competitiveness of smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in today’s economy. They help small firms overcomefinancial constraints, close skills gaps, and operate more efficiently. By going digital, SMEs canscale faster, compete globally, and drive broader economic development. SMEs play a key role in national and global economies with their contributions to innovation,employment, and value added. Indeed, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD), SMEs make up 99 percent of all firms across the 38 OECD nations,generate 50 to 60 percent of value added on average, and are a main source of jobs.1Moreover,since start-ups tend to be SMEs, these firms also contribute significantly to innovation,particularly disruptive innovation. As research from the University of Texas, Austin analyzing6,116 patents finds, start-up patents are cited 8.5 percent more annually than those of moreestablished firms.2Meanwhile, another study notes that start-ups are particularly adept atdisruptive innovation due to their ability to test ideas quickly, respond to market feedback, andrefine their products.3 However, despite their contributions, SMEs face more challenges than their larger, moreestablished counterparts do. SMEs tend to have more difficulties reaching customers, fewerfinancial resources, face greater skills gaps, and have lower productivity, leading to difficultiesscaling their business. According to a survey by Goldman Sachs, more than 75 percent of U.S.small businesses surveyed in 2023 were concerned about their ability to access capital, while 61percent of the small businesses that applied for a business loan found it challenging to findaffordable financing.4More generally, the Future of Business Survey also highlights that firmswith an online presence and that are younger than two years (which tend to fall into the SMEcategory) face challenges in securing financi