Digital Orchestration - Proximity for the SME led Global Value Chain evolution

Digital Orchestration provides proximity for tangible product makers located distant from supply sources and major customer markets. This work combines the study of the evolution of human production and contextual history, to demonstrate that product makers can be and have been successful through the substitution of spatial proximity with other forms of proximity. 37 contemporary small businesses (SMEs) that lead their own Global Value Chains are studied. Digital Orchestration is found to provide new opportunities for small sub-scale product makers to orchestrate design, make and sell globally, limited only by protected intellectual property and human senses not yet conveyed digitally.