The important beneficiaries of the EU funding that support the development of competitiveness based on innovation are Small and Medium Size Companies (SMEs). Their profiles may vary with respect to the type of business and the competitive environment. Currently, Regional Development and Innovation Agencies operating in the regions of the EU and in associated countries decide about the type and scale of financial support provided to SMEs on the basis of heterogeneous data resources, applying different SME segmentation criteria. The purpose of this article is to justify the necessity and technical possibilities of creating a coherent and intelligent tool for the segmentation of Small and Medium Size Companies, with the support of Regional Development Agency databases. This would allow to monitor the process of providing regional companies with innovative support and would increase the effectiveness of this support (the beneficiaries of the support would be the companies working most effectively on innovations). The analysis of the SME segmentation methods currently used in 18 different European Regional Development Agencies and associated regions was carried out. Furthermore, the approaches to SME segmentation in 15 countries and the European Commission were compared.

Segmentation of clients is a strategy widely used by companies and marketing units to sell their process. However, this concept is not so well established and widespread in public agencies supporting SME innovation. What are the benefits of designing advanced segmentation strategies for development agencies? Economic development practitioners agree that it’s necessary to provide customised innovation services to companies to get a greater impact. This paper presents how nine development agencies from seven European countries carry out their segmentation strategies to provide tailored initiatives of SMEs’ innovation support. The analysis also identifies common challenges RDA face, and how introducing Big Data Analysis can help them enhance innovation support in their regions.

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