From factory floors to front offices: taking the Made Smarter model beyond manufacturing
Digital transformation is often described as a technology challenge. In practice, it is a business-change challenge: understanding where digital tools can make the greatest difference, choosing the right investment, building confidence across the organisation and turning new systems into measurable results.
That is the principle behind Made Smarter, the national programme helping manufacturing SMEs adopt technologies that improve productivity, efficiency, quality and growth. Its strength lies in a structured but flexible journey – from diagnostic assessment and expert advice to a tailored digital roadmap, leadership and skills support, and grant-enabled implementation.
Oxford Innovation Advice is strengthening its role in this national delivery landscape. Following a series of competitive contract wins, it is supporting Made Smarter activity across the East of England, East Midlands and South West, building on experience in regions including Yorkshire and Cornwall. Over the past two years, its local delivery teams have helped more than 600 manufacturers explore and adopt technologies such as automation, robotics, connected systems and data integration.
The economic opportunity is significant. The UK’s SME Digital Adoption Taskforce estimates that even a 1% productivity uplift across SMEs could add £94 billion a year to GDP. Office for National Statistics analysis has also found that firms adopting advanced technologies were associated with 19% higher turnover per worker, after accounting for management practices and other business characteristics.
Yet the value of the Made Smarter model may extend far beyond manufacturing. Professional and business services – including accountancy, legal services, consultancy, architecture, HR, marketing and property services – face many of the same barriers. Leaders know that AI and digital tools matter, but may struggle to identify the right use cases, assess return on investment, develop internal skills or manage organisational change. ONS research identifies finding suitable use cases, cost and a lack of AI expertise among the most common barriers to adoption.
A Made Smarter-style pilot for these sectors could provide a practical route from interest to action. A sector-specific diagnostic could identify where manual processes, disconnected systems or underused data are limiting productivity. Businesses could then receive a tailored roadmap covering priority investments, skills requirements, implementation risks and expected outcomes.
Potential applications are wide-ranging: automating repetitive administration, integrating finance and customer relationship management systems, improving client onboarding, introducing secure client portals, using AI for knowledge management, strengthening cyber resilience and developing new technology-enabled services. Crucially, the support would focus not simply on buying technology, but on helping leaders embed it safely and effectively.
Oxford Innovation Advice argues that such a pilot should be judged by outcomes, including time saved, increased revenue per employee, faster client turnaround, improved utilisation, better customer experience and the creation of new services and jobs. It could also generate valuable evidence for policymakers about how digital adoption support can be adapted for high-value service-sector SMEs.
With experience supporting more than 37,000 SMEs and delivering complex, place-based programmes for public-sector partners, Oxford Innovation Advice is well positioned to help design, deliver and evaluate this next generation of support. Made Smarter has shown how expert-led intervention can move businesses from uncertainty to action. The next productivity frontier is to apply that proven learning more widely.