Relazioni di mercato e interazione attraverso la rete: un rinnovamento nelle imprese distrettuali?

To compete in the present economic scenario small and big companies need to re-organise their innovation processes, in order to identify a new sustainable competitive advantage. Especially SMEs of industrial districts have to open local boundaries to create relations and interactions with new players, to give more value to local knowledge and access new competencies. As an information and communication infrastructure, ICTs could reinforce and increase the dialogues of SMEs within interactive extended networks. Within this framework in 2004 a research project in more than 300 SMEs of most important value chains of the province of Pordenone was developed. The aim of the project was to assess the diffusion of ICTs and the coherence of the investments with respect to innovation processes undergoing in different areas such as product innovation, supply chain management, customer relationship marketing. This paper discusses the results, by focusing on the re-organisation of distribution channels and relations with customers.