Today, more than 40 professionals and around 30 companies, along with several prominent entities from the province of Cuenca, gathered in 120 professional meetings as part of the B2B Smart CLM business event. This event, organized by the Rural SME Acceleration Office of Itecam (Industrial Technological Center of Castilla-La Mancha) in collaboration with CEOE-Cepyme Cuenca, was held in Arcas with the support of the Diputación de Cuenca, the City Council of Arcas, and the Rural Development Group Adiman.
The purpose of the meeting was to bring together technology providers from the province with small and micro-enterprises interested in initiating or advancing in their digitalization processes. Jorge Parra, CEO of Itecam, emphasized the importance of these meetings for business digitalization, especially for small companies. “Time is money and any tool or technology that can help optimize and better manage their time and information will contribute to updating their business and, above all, to extract added value from that investment,” he stated.
During the event, technology companies with various services participated, including digital marketing, software development, web design, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence applied to small businesses. Demonstrations of key technologies in which Itecam specializes, such as collaborative robotics and ChatGPT applications for SMEs, were also conducted.
Miguel Ángel Santos, Director of the Economic Department of CEOE-Cepyme Cuenca and technical secretary of APETI, highlighted the benefits of these events for digitalization, both for leading companies, which can expand their customer base, and for visitors, who can discover new ways of digitalization to enhance their competitiveness.
Pilar Belmonte, Deputy Mayor of the City Council of Arcas, thanked the companies and self-employed individuals who choose to establish their businesses in rural areas, emphasizing the dual benefit they bring: services provided to residents and job creation.
The SME Acceleration Offices have been implemented throughout Spain by Red.es, a public entity attached to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function through the State Secretariat for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. These offices have a total budget of 23.8 million euros, of which Red.es contributes up to 80% of the eligible budget and the beneficiary entities the rest. The actions are funded by the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan through the Next Generation EU funds, within the framework of the Spain Digital 2026 agenda and the SME Digitalization Plan 2021-2025, which includes the creation of a network of SME Acceleration Offices.