Digital Transformation, Branding Challenges and Use of Internet for Business Purposes Mark Serbian Internet Domain Day

This year’s Serbian Internet Domain Day – DIDS 2023, which was held on March 7, 2023, was marked by the topics of digital transformation, the final acceptance of internet and other technologies for business purposes, as well as the challenges of branding in the new circumstances.

The remarkable attendance best confirmed that the topics that were especially highlighted at the event were current, well chosen and interesting, as well illustrated by its official slogan “Think Digital”.

DIDS 2023 was opened by the state secretary at the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, Milan Dobrijevic, and the director of the Serbian National Internet Domain Name Registry Foundation (RNIDS), Dejan Djukic, combining continuity with development – while RNIDS is marking the 15th anniversary of the registration of the .rs domain on March 10, 2023, the competent ministry is intensively promoting the implementation of broadband internet in rural areas and schools in Serbia, at the same time harmonizing the relevant legislation with the global and EU standards.

The introductory keynote lecture by Dave Birss incited the audience to have a think about how customers are in fact stimulated to be loyal to a brand. The “Family Companies and the Next Level” panel touched on the topic of the generational shift in family companies in Serbia, as well as the dynamic of interpersonal relations in companies where the managers and the employees are at the same time family members.

The series of three lectures that followed fully captured the audience’s attention. The rebranding of the Domen.rs website, the story about branding tradition, that is, rakija as a national brand, and about how to achieve good multilingual user experience were very different, but still topics which had to do with real life, which showed that there was plenty of room for innovations in Serbia and that this space was being taken by young, enterprising people prepared for every global challenge imaginable.

The ”Digital Business Solutions from Serbia” panel was preceded by the presentation of the results of the research on the use of digital technologies for local business purposes. The survey was carried out on a sample of 650 companies and it has shown that a half of them carry out email communication from their own internet domain, of which two thirds are .rs domains. As many as 82% of the subjects use a website, 68% of which in the Serbian domain space. However, only around 36% of the companies have online sale available on their websites, whereas the favorite social networks for sales activities are still Facebook and Instagram, with a noted growth of LinkedIn and TikTok. Another conclusion is that Viber is not sufficiently used for business purposes, considering that, with a 90% share in Serbia, it is absolutely dominant in the sphere of instant messaging services.

At the closing of the event, a keynote lecture was held by Fredrik Haren, and the topic was – creativity. According to Haren, it is important to point to and fight two misconceptions: that creativity is a rare occurrence and that it is uniform in nature.

A recording of the conference can be found on the RNIDS YouTube channel.

Ministarstvo informisanja i telekomunikacija Republike Srbije

RNIDS Beograd

Ministry of Information and Telecommunications

Serbian National Internet Domain Name Registry Foundation

RNIDS

Milan Dobrijević

Dejan Đukić

Dave Birss

Fredrik Haren

Serbian Internet Domain Day

DIDS 2023

use of internet in business

branding challenges

Think Digital