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At the same time, 44% of SMEs said that digitization is not important for their companies, 22% said that digitization plans are of average importance, and 26% chose the answer "don’t know".

At the same time, Panke said that in Lithuania and Estonia awareness about the importance of digitization is much higher – 19% in Estonia and 17% in Lithuania. Also, 19% of Estonians and 18% of Lithuanians said that digitization is not important.

"Transferring processes from paper to electronic environment, attraction and service of customers online or development of e-services are just some of the digitization activities. It is hard to name a business field where this is not important, but awareness of Latvian business representatives is much lower than awareness of our neighbors in Estonia and Lithuania. This might be related with the fact that 83% of SMEs in Latvia focus only on the domestic market and, possibly, do not see any reason to look for new ways to find customers," said SEB Banka’s board member Arnis Skapars, adding that also Latvian residents are becoming more demanding and companies that are not available on new digital channels will not be competitive.

Baltic Business Outlook is an annual survey by SEB Bank, establishing expectations of Baltic small and medium-sized companies in five areas: changes in turnover, number of employees, exports, innovations and investment. Baltic Business Outlook 2018 encompasses answers by 4,270 small and medium-sized businesses across Baltic countries, including almost 2,000 Latvian companies. The survey was done in December 2017 and January 2018.