How can Fit 4 performance programmes help companies to become more efficient?
Three “Fit 4” support programmes offered by Luxinnovation already enable companies to improve their performance in three areas: digitalisation, sustainability and operational excellence. In July 2024, Lex Delles, Minister for the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, and Sasha Baillie, CEO of Luxinnovation, announced that existing programmes were to be standardised and simplified, and a new one to be launched: Fit 4 Digital - AI. We asked Emmanuelle Kipper, Senior Advisor - SME Performance at Luxinnovation, to tell us more about these performance programmes for businesses.
Digitalisation, sustainability and operational excellence: three programmes for businesses
Emmanuelle, could you describe the existing Fit 4 performance programmes and tell us who they are designed for?
These programmes have been designed to meet companies’ current needs and enable them to remain competitive through innovation, which is a performance factor common to all companies, irrespective of what they do or how big they are.
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Fit 4 Digital
The Fit 4 Digital programme currently enables us to take stock of a company's IT infrastructure and the software it uses, and to suggest areas for improvement.
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Fit 4 Sustainability
With Fit 4 Sustainability, reducing the environmental impact of SMEs and major companies is a priority. This way, a given company can request assistance to have a consultant undertake an environmental study (energy audit, carbon report, water footprint assessment, report on consumption of raw materials, etc.) to assess this impact and identify potential ways of reducing it.
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Fit 4 Innovation (operational excellence)
The aim of Fit 4 Innovation is to optimise the company's operations, i.e. move it in the direction of operational excellence, by improving its organisational structure, processes, positioning, etc., and therefore its profitability. It's also a good preliminary step prior to a digitalisation project.
For example, there is the Fit 4 Innovation - Healthtech Market programme (which helps companies to obtain CE marking for their innovative medical devices, thereby speeding up their launch on the European market).
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Since their creation, have the original objectives of the Fit 4 programmes been achieved?
The Fit 4 programmes are designed to appeal to the widest possible audience and, in the first instance, to SMEs, which are at the heart of the economy. To date, several hundred companies have benefited from these programmes.
Why add a new Fit 4 Digital – AI programme for artificial intelligence? How does it differ from the three other existing programmes?
The range of programmes must address topical issues of concern to businesses and, of course, innovation plays a key role in all aspects of the programme.
For example, new technological advances are emerging, creating new risks, but also new opportunities. We need to help companies to grasp these opportunities and adopt them as their own under the best possible conditions. We absolutely couldn't ignore artificial intelligence, so we've created a new programme for it, which will be launched this autumn.
Fit 4 Digital – AI will enable a business to identify the 'use cases' for which artificial intelligence could be useful, and to analyse the maturity of the data required to assess whether using AI is possible, and under what conditions. An action plan will supplement this analysis.
What is the outlook?
As announced in July, we are working on setting up new programmes, i.e. increasing the number of missions that should be eligible for public funding. Administrative procedures should also be simplified to facilitate access to programmes. All this is planned for the end of the year. Stay tuned!