Project Acelerar o Norte wants companies with greater digital presence

Close to 350 companies in the district of Bragança are able to participate in the Acelerar o Norte project, which aims to digitize as many businesses as possible, whose awareness-raising Roadshow passed through the district capital last Thursday. “Digitalization is one of the biggest gaps that they still have and those who don’t communicate don’t exist, but it is necessary to do it to increase sales and give their activities a greater challenge”, admitted the project director, Nuno Camilo. “We want companies to have a digital footprint to be able to go beyond their geographic and intervention footprint. Given the number of people who have cell phones, who use computers and the Internet every day, they have been growing. We have around 10 million inhabitants and more active cell phones and their use is increasing. When people arrive in a location, what they do is search on their cell phone for restaurants, shops or something like that”, said the person in charge.

It has been noted that traditional commerce is losing ground in the face of the rise in online shopping. “We want to win over more entrepreneurs. At this stage we are still seeing the maturity of companies, whether they are already on the Internet, whether they are on social networks, such as Facebook. What we want is to diagnose the situation and then invite them to take the next step to another phase so that we can standardize the project for the digitalization of companies in the North region”, said Nuno Camilo.

After the diagnosis, a value will be assigned to each company to deal with digitalization. “They receive a check and can go to a group of pre-defined companies to hire services based on their needs based on the diagnosis of digital notoriety”, described the project director.

The value of the checks varies, between 500 and two thousand euros. “There are areas that are more digitalized than others, but we realize that individual entrepreneurs have not yet moved towards digitalization”, he stressed.

The project began last year and ends in September 2025, to support entrepreneurs in the North of Portugal in the commerce, personal services and catering sectors and similar sectors. In the north of the country there are 16 accelerators, namely one in Bragança and another in Mirandela.

Acelerar o Norte is a project that results from an initiative involving the Confederation of Commerce and Services Platform, the Portuguese Business Association, the Hotel, Restaurant and Similar Association of Portugal and ACEPI-Digital Economy of Portugal.

ACISB (Commercial, Industrial and Services Association of Bragança) is one of the partners in the district. According to the president, Maria João Rodrigues, “companies considered society already have a digital presence, in most cases, some small ones too, but micro-companies are those where the deficit is huge”.

The president of ACISB believes that “companies will join the project when it is publicized and implemented, because it is fantastic for training businesspeople. Because there has to be this step towards digitalization.”

ACISB will implement this initiative in six municipalities, namely Bragança, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Miranda do Douro, Mogadouro, Vimioso and Vinhais. “We will try to reach more entrepreneurs”, he highlighted.

The objective of the Roadshow for Digitalization of the North, which features a series of meetings – the first was in Braga – is to show that digitalization is for all businesses, from the largest to the smallest.

In 2023, the number of Portuguese who made online purchases doubled. 60% of the population contributed to the approximately nine billion euros spent on purchasing products or services via the internet, numbers that, for the four entities that form the consortium that manages Acelerar o Norte, justify the importance of the project’s existence .