Stagelt
StageIt: Transforming SMEs into Successful Experience Stagers
The goals of StageIt are to develop knowledge about how SMEs can take advantage of experience staging as a means to improve their competitiveness and put this knowledge into practice in three SMEs. The point of departure is the recognition that technological innovation alone does not necessarily insure market acceptance. Instead, competitive environments require innovation that goes beyond technology to provide less tangible, but potentially more valuable, experiential benefits.
StageIt's industry-academia collaboration includes two universities and three SMEs that will benefit from transformation to experience staging. The academic participants contribute their knowledge, research findings and expertise and the industry participants contribute their practical experience prior to, during and following the transformation. The collaboration will make it possible to approach the transformation of SMEs into experience stagers from both a pragmatic and a theoretical point of view.
The StageIt project will yield three in-depth longitudinal studies of the SMEs involved. Furthermore, an on-line survey has been developed to collect data about customer satisfaction and perceptions of the experiences staged by the SMEs. Customers will be surveyed once each year for three years.
The StageIt project is funded in part by the Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) programme.
