Digitalisation in Romania is recognised, appreciated and partially implemented, but remains constrained by human capital deficits, fragmented strategies and weak institutional integration, according to the Romania Digitalisation Index - SME Digital Index, launched on Tuesday by employers' confederation IMM Romania.
"This has been an effort spanning more than seven years, which began with an initiative we launched together with many partners from the digitalisation field, called 'Romania Tech Nation'. This happened in 2019, under the high patronage of the President of Romania. We were talking about digitalisation, the digital transformation of SMEs, working from home and various concepts that at the time seemed unfamiliar. Then the pandemic came, and institutions, SMEs and stakeholders rapidly digitised and became more attentive to this process. Now the time has come for an SME Digital Index," said Florin Jianu, President of IMM Romania, who briefly presented the study's findings.
According to him, the research was conducted among 1,464 SMEs and 73 stakeholders, including universities, innovation hubs, SME clusters and companies in the field, and also involved the use of artificial intelligence.
"Romania is currently in a favourable position. It has a substantial number of specialists - specifically 221,000 active professionals - and around 10,000 IT graduates each year. Romania ranks 13th globally in terms of average internet speed, and 90% of the population has internet access. We also host the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre. The IT sector's share of GDP is currently higher than that of agriculture or the automotive sector, at around 7% in recent years. The average salary in the IT sector is double the national average net salary," Jianu explained.
Another conclusion of the SME Digital Index is that Romania's digital convergence can only be accelerated by shifting the focus from technology acquisition to skills, coordination, interoperability and long-term governance, placing SMEs at the centre of digital policy design..
Romanian companies - especially SMEs - have largely achieved a basic digital presence (websites, social media, online accounting), but advanced digital integration remains limited. Digitalisation is still focused on visibility, compliance and immediate efficiency gains rather than data-driven decision-making, advanced automation or large-scale use of artificial intelligence. This confirms a structural gap between digital access and digital maturity, with many firms remaining at an early or intermediate stage of transformation.
The analysis also indicates that the main obstacles to digitalisation are the lack of digital skills, limited time for training, unclear digital strategies and resistance to change, rather than issues related to connectivity or basic infrastructure. Entrepreneurs rate the difficulty of finding employees with digital skills at 6.4 out of 10, while investment in human resources averages around 3% of annual turnover, with only a small minority exceeding 5%. This points to a persistent human capital bottleneck that constrains the effective use of technology.
Both entrepreneurs and stakeholders overwhelmingly perceive digitalisation as positive and value-generating, particularly in terms of productivity, faster access to information, flexibility and operational efficiency. However, the scale of impact varies significantly: while some firms report transformative effects, many experience only moderate benefits. This suggests that partial digitalisation limits returns, reinforcing the need for integrated, comprehensive digital projects rather than isolated tools.
Romanian SMEs invest modestly in research and development (on average around 2.8-3% of turnover), with very limited involvement in structured digital projects or collaboration with universities and research institutes. Most SMEs rely on their own funds and operate in isolation, while stakeholders emphasise the importance of interoperability, AI-based services and public-private partnerships. The gap between ambition and implementation points to a fragile innovation ecosystem that underutilises research capacity and collective digital solutions.
SMEs also regularly interact with public digital platforms (SPV-ANAF, Revisal, Ghiseul.ro), but their overall experience is rated at just 5.54 out of 10. Key issues - poor usability, technical instability, lack of interoperability and slow response times - create administrative friction and undermine trust. Stakeholders clearly prioritise digital skills programmes, public-private partnerships and full procedural digitalisation, indicating that Romania's digital state must evolve from fragmented platforms towards a coherent, SME-oriented digital ecosystem.
IMM Romania launched the SME Digital Index on Tuesday, a first-of-its-kind national initiative dedicated to assessing the level of digitalisation of Romanian micro-enterprises.
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