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Implementing smart city concept in the strategic urban operations - the case of Warsaw

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In the context of climate change, the global economic downturn and ongoing urbanisation processes, contemporary cities are facing numerous challenges. In this regard, there is a general consensus amongst policy-makers, practitioners and academics that a smart city concept can become a key driver for enabling social, economic and environmental sustainability of urban areas. The goal of this paper is to investigate the subject of implementation of the smart concept into strategic city operations. The article focuses on Warsaw as a case study of a city currently revising its long-term strategy towards 2030 with a component of smart policies. This study is of a qualitative character. It is divided into three interconnected phases including secondary and primary research including semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of public and private sectors working on policies and applying smart city solutions. The overarching research questions to be answered are: How smart city concept and urban data management is approached in Warsaw? Does Warsaw apply smart solutions and open data systems in its strategic operations? So far, considerable research has been devoted to the technical aspect of smart city, but less attention has been paid to the analysis of strategic city operations based on smart solutions. There is also a noticeable difference between the abundance of information about smart solutions applied in Western Europe (Barcelona) and a substantial lack of literature existing in this field in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Therefore, the case study selected for this investigation is Warsaw, which is one of the largest cities in the region and is currently reworking on its long-term strategy towards the year 2030. This research aims to contribute to the current academic debate on ICT solutions and smart city principles applied in urban areas with a specific focus on Warsaw, and also to provide valuable insights for policy makers and practitioners about the current state of affairs regarding smart solutions in CEE. Recommended citation: Kustra, M., Brodowicz D. P. (2016). Implementing smart city concept in the strategic urban operations - the case of Warsaw. Proceedings of 11th International Forum of Knowledge Assets Dynamics 2016, Towards a New Architecture of Knowledge: Big Data, Culture and Creativity. 15-17 June 2016 (pp. 2040-2052). Dresden, Germany.
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Implementing smart city concept in the strategic
urban operations - the case of Warsaw
Monika Kustra *
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia (edifici B3)
Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss 5
08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain
E-mail: mkustra@uoc.edu
Dominika P. Brodowicz
Innovative City Unit
Warsaw School of Economics
Al. Niepodleglosci 162
02-554 Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: dominika.brodowicz@sgh.waw.pl
* Corresponding author
Structured Abstract
Purpose In the context of climate change, the global economic downturn and on-going
urbanisation processes, contemporary cities are facing numerous challenges. In this
regard, there is a general consensus amongst policy-makers, practitioners and academics
that a smart city concept can become a key driver for enabling social, economic and
environmental sustainability of urban areas. The goal of this paper is to investigate the
subject of implementation of the smart concept into strategic city operations. The article
focuses on Warsaw as a case study of a city currently revising its long-term strategy
towards 2030 with a component of smart policies.
Design/methodology/approach/limitations This study is of a qualitative character. It is
divided into three interconnected phases including secondary and primary research
including semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of public and private
sectors working on policies and applying smart city solutions. The overarching research
questions to be answered are: How smart city concept and urban data
management is approached in Warsaw? Does Warsaw apply smart solutions and open
data systems in its strategic operations?
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Originality/value So far, considerable research has been devoted to the technical aspect
of smart city, but less attention has been paid to the analysis of strategic city operations
based on smart solutions. There is also a noticeable difference between the abundance of
information about smart solutions applied in Western Europe (Barcelona) and a
substantial lack of literature existing in this field in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
Therefore, the case study selected for this investigation is Warsaw, which is one of the
largest cities in the region and is currently reworking on its long-term strategy towards the
year 2030.
Practical implications This research aims to contribute to the current academic debate
on ICT solutions and smart city principles applied in urban areas with a specific focus on
Warsaw, and also to provide valuable insights for policy makers and practitioners about
the current state of affairs regarding smart solutions in CEE.
Keywords smart city, city operations, strategic planning, Warsaw, urban data
Paper type Academic Paper
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1 Introduction
In light of climate change, the global economic crisis and on-going urbanisation
processes, contemporary cities face complex environmental, socio-economic,
technological and spatial challenges. The concept of smart city is recently being perceived
as a remedy to these challenges (Schaffers et al. 2011). In this regard, there is a general
consensus among Western policy-makers, practitioners and academics that a smart city
concept based on ICT solutions, open data systems and other intelligent solutions could
become a crucial driver for enabling sustainability of urban areas. However, indiscernible
attention has been devoted to the notion of smart city in relation to strategic planning and
city operations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Therefore, this paper aims to
contribute to the knowledge by analysing smart concept in the context of city operations
based on the example of Warsaw, which is one of the largest cities in the region and is
currently revising its strategy towards the year 2030.
2 Smart city concept
Smart city is a complex concept developed intensively in the last couple of years. Like
in case of other multidimensional problems this one also lacks a generally accepted
definition. Numerous researchers (Hollands 2008; Caragliu et al. 2011; Kitchin 2013;
Komninos 2013; Kramers et al. 2014; March & Ribera-Fumaz 2014) and also large
companies e.g. IBM (IBM Institute for Business Value 2009), CISCO (Falconer &
Mitchell 2012), Microsoft (Microsoft 2016) as well as international institutions such as
European Commission (European Commission 2012) or World Bank (World Bank 2015)
provide their own working definitions of this term.
In general smart cities involve the creation of new relations between technology and
society (Söderström, Paasche, & Klauser, 2014: 309), the concept is no longer affixed to
the diffusion of ICT, but most of all is related with needs of communities living in a
particular area (Albino et al., 2015). Therefore, the main goal of the performance of any
smart city is to improve the quality of life, which could be accomplished through the
application of ICT solutions (Batty et al., 2012; Albino et al., 2015,). It is also necessary
to emphasize that critical perspective on smart city concept has been present in the
academic discourse. Several authors have referred to smart city as a rather vague and
ambiguous notion being used mostly for marketing purposes (Hollands 2008; Vanolo
2013; Söderström et al. 2014). Table 1 below presents selected definitions of smart city.
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Table 1. Selected definitions of a smart city model.
Source
Caragliu et al. (2011)
)
Angelidou (2014)
March & Ribera-Fumaz
(2014)
As signalled in the introductory paragraph there is both practical and research gap in
terms of relation between smart city and strategic planning and this is mainly due to the
interdisciplinary nature of this field (Angelidou 2014). For this reason, more detailed
research in this area should be conducted. According to numerous smart city rankings in
Europe (Giffinger et al. 2007, Fastcoexist 2014) and worldwide (Juniper Research 2015),
mostly cities in Western Europe take highest places, foremost Barcelona (Fast 2014).
   mart City  framed under the overarching
concept of a self-sufficient city (March & Ribera-Fumaz 2014) in its day-to-day
operations. Barcelona representatives aim to promote it as a benchmark of smart city in
the global scale, but not only through marketing tools, but actually through projects and
actions embodied into the long-term strategy (Ajuntament de Barcelona 2013). To
achieve this goal, collaboration between private companies, academic institutions,
government and citizens of Barcelona was established on numerous levels of city daily
operations .
3 Smart city operations in Warsaw
To exploit the research questions the case of the city of Warsaw was investigated. It
was chosen as an example of CEE city, which is currently on its path towards revising its
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long-term strategy, which will also include smart solutions. The study consisted of three
interconnected steps. The first two were focused on documentary research and existing
project analysis (over dozen current city documents were examined and major projects
realised between 2007 and 2015 were investigated). The third step was based on primary
data obtained in interviews (14 semi-structured interviews with public and private sector
representatives).
3.1 Phase One: City data monitoring in Warsaw
City data monitoring should be at the core of smart city operations and it is a part of a
larger trend called urban analytics. Information gathering tools such as sensors could be
used for estimation of the number of cars entering city centres or amount of municipal
waste produced and to optimise city management and its daily operations (Pospieszny
2015). In this context, a review of Warsaw strategy towards 2020 conducted for the
Social Communication Center revealed numerous issues related to data acquisition,
monitoring and analysis in the city including (Brodowicz, Domaradzka, Sadowy 2015):
Lack of real-time and accurate information about public gatherings, use of public
space;
Random use of modern communicators and services in contacts with residents in
social matters;
Incompatible or duplicate data sets shared between departments on one issue but
reported from different approaches.
Tools and data source used by the city of Warsaw so far are static and historical
rather than offering real time and up-to-date information. Referring to the currently
effective strategy in effect for the capital of Poland towards the year 2020 the main source
for quantitative indicators is Urban Audit program initiated by the European Commission
and Eurostat in 1998 to response to growing demand for urban data (GUS 2015). It
provides comparable statistics on European cities regarding demography, housing,
employment, and community involvement but is based on historical data provided by
national statistical offices, city halls or local governments.
Another source of in        
perspective is the Warsaw Barometer (Barometr Warszawski) initiated in 2003, which has
so far 13 editions (UM.Warszawa 2016). It is based on a random, and representative
sample of 1100 inhabitants interviewed (face-to-face) at homes by the use of Computer
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Assisted Personal Interview technique (CAPI). Questions regard all sorts of aspects of
city functioning including the park & ride system (P&R), public transporation fees and
public medical care (Barometr Warszawski 2015). Similar tool, but focused on districts
instead of the entire city, is         
(UM.Warszawa 2014). It regards topics including culture, education, security and even
happiness in context of living in the city, districts and closest neighbourhood (Ibid.) It is
perceived as a valuable source of information for city representatives, but it has numerous
limitations - foremost its historical and subjective character.
In this era of open data, Web 2.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) the city should be
using more dynamic sources of information. A case project entitled Apps4Warsaw (Dane
po Warszawsku) (Apps4Warsaw n.d.) could become a benchmark. It is an initiative of
TechSoup (NGO) and delivered in partnership with city representatives, scholars and ICT
companies with financial support from the National Center for Research and
Development. The main objective and benefit of the project for the city and residents was
creation of application programming interface (API) for creation of mobile applications
(commonly apps) for city dwellers. According to TechSoup the platform is built on
exposition of two elements - static data and real-time. This is the first open source
platform dedicated to Warsaw which proves real-time data including public
transportation. After      the platform has not been
supported form the city budget and currently it is not developed further. Nevertheless its
functioning in its current form proves the importance of access to open data for citizens.
The city does not only open data for residents but also gathers it from citizens. 19115 is
an intervention number, mobile application and platform launched in 2013 (UM
Warszawa 2015). During first two years of the operation of the system, 563.000 requests
were registered. The application enables not only to report the problem (e.g. broken street
light), but also to check the status of the request. In addition, the platform redirects the
users to the e-government portal and Public Information Bulletin (UM Warszawa 2015).
3.2 Phase Two: Investigation of smart projects
The concept of smart city has appeared on the agenda of the City of Warsaw for the
last couple of years. Yet, it is not a strategy in the context of the strategic planning
approach described by Lassare (2007) or Henry (2008). Reference to smart city appears in
the context of single projects regarding specific areas of city functioning rather than a part
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of a long-term plan for the entire capital and ranges from transportation, buildings, ICT
and energy. Some of them were directly conducted by the city alone, other were inspired
by and managed in cooperation with the private sector and financed mostly from EU
funds, especially from European Regional Development Fund.
Among the main strategic documents for Warsaw in the field of smart cities is the
Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP). It was adopted in 2011 by the city council and is
coordinated by the Infrastructure Department of The City of Warsaw. The plan resulted
          (UM.Warszwa2013). The
main goal to achieve through implementation of SEAP is to go beyond the aims of
Europe 2020 Strategy and foremost to reduce CO2 emissions by more then 20%. It also
includes areas of intervention such as (Ibid.):
city infrastructure, i.e. heat distribution networks and street lighting;
transportation policy; and even
civic areas understood as social engagement.
The range of topics and issues covered in SEAP clearly shows that it goes beyond
smart principles and is rather a comprehensive plan for the city to improve the quality of
living in general by including smart and green solutions through EU funding in the
financial perspective from 2014-2020. According to the plan implementation should bring
a number of direct benefits to the residents including reduction in travel time if they use
public transport. However, greater challenge for Warsaw could be encouragement for
residents and visitors to use public transportation rather then private cars. It is estimated
that an average private car user in Warsaw loses PLN 15 (app. Euro 3.50) daily and PLN
3976 (app. Euro 925) yearly due to traffic jams (Deloitte and Targeo 2015). Another
benefit of implementing SEAP would be improvement of air quality achieved through
reduction of emissions of gases and solid pollutants, while the city plans to transition to
alternative fuels and renewable energy sources. It is planned that by 2020 there will be
130 electric buses in the city fleet and the railway infrastructure in the greater city area
will be developed and modernised. Meanwhile the level of air pollution from PM 2.5 and
PM 10 are exceeded significantly in some areas of the city, including the prestigious
Wilanów area, oftentimes more than 100 days a year while the norm for cities is
established at 35 days (UM.Warszawa 2015).
So far on the list of projects described by the city not only as smart or focused on
new technologies are for instance Open House and Cities on Power. The first one, Open
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House, was conducted between the years of 2010-2013 and aimed to merge existing
methodologies for sustainability assessment of buildings in Europe into a universal
framework. Together with Warsaw there were 19 partners from 11 EU countries
participating. As a result, an assessment methodology was developed and tested on 68
buildings across Europe. The second project, Cities on Power, was conducted by Warsaw,
Turin, Ravenna and Klagenfurt between 2011 and 2014 and was aimed to promote the use
of renewable energy in cities. One of the outcomes of the Euro 2.3 million project was
development of an IT-toolbox based on user-input data as to energy usage regarding
specific buildings and their economic and ecological effect, to help support residents in
the decision-making process regarding types of energy consumption and their levels
(Cities on Power 2014). Among other projects connected with the concept of smart city in
the framework of EU funds between 2007 and 2013 were CASCADE, E3SoHo and ICE-
WISH, and the newest one is Sharing cities SHAR-LLM coordinated by the Greater
London Authority and funded from Horizon 2020. Warsaw received Euro 323 033 out of
EUR 28 045 835 1 and will use these project funds for gradual transformation towards
developing a social, climate and environmentally friendly economy through creation of
low carbon emission districts (EC 2016). This will be based on well-known projects such
as Hammarby Sjostad in Stockholm and EuropaCity in Berlin (Ibid.). It is an ambitious
plan for the city and mainly executed from the scratch including on-site energy
production. Therefore, taking into consideration the level of EU funding allocated for this
project in Warsaw, additional sources of financing including Public-Private Partnership
(PPP) and loans will need to be considered.
3.3 Phase Three: Interviews with experts
This phase of the investigation was performed according to the PEST model,
describing political, economic, social and technological issues raised by experts taking
part in semi-structured interviews. For the purpose of this paper it was decided to select 3
major issues in each category.
1 Ibid.
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Table 2. Selected findings from PEST analysis
POLITICAL CONTEXT
Lack of long-term integrated
planning and visioning.
Legal basis for smart initiatives
and political leadership is
lacking.
More cooperation between
government, private and
academic sector is needed.
ECONOMIC CONTEXT
Cities should be managed like
business projects. The same applies
to smart initiatives.
Smart city may be perceived as a
corporate term.
Scarcity of local funds is a barrier
for implementation of smart
initiatives. EU funds are of great
importance.
SOCIAL CONTEXT
Social participation in smart
initiatives, e.g. #Warsaw 2030

potential by supporting social
initiatives.
Smart city model is perceived as
a tool to enhance quality of life
of citizens.
TECHNOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Differences in perceiving
technological context by public and
private sector.
Providing and upgrading open data
systems and platforms is a core of
smart city operations
Each city is different, therefore
existing technological solutions
need to be appropriately adapted
not implement as a one-size-fit all
solution.
3.3.1 Political context
According to the respondents, smart city actions in strategic operations of the city
are nowadays more visible, both from the user as well as provider perspective. However,
strong political actions as well as selection of a leader in this field are still lacking. A
couple of interviewees mentioned that integrated strategic planning is understood as a
long-term approach to city management and is essential for implementing a smart project.
One interviewee, a representative of private industry, claimed there is lack of integrated
strategic planning in Warsaw.
In terms of strategic planning document, the concept of smart city is not used in its
written form because at that time it was not so popular and promoted idea in the field of
spatial planning. Currently policy makers are aware of this notion and its significant role
in urban planning and management.
Regarding cooperation between local authorities and academic, private and research
sectors, some discrepancies could be listed. On one hand, representatives of local
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authorities emphasized their willingness to collaborate with other sectors, private and
academic included. On the other, interviewees of the private industry usually stated that
local authorities should cooperate more with academic institutions. In contrast to
interviewees from the public sector, representatives of private industry were able to
provide more examples of this kind of cooperation. On the other hand, interviewees from
the public sector stated that although infrastructure for cooperation exists, the academic
sector is not yet ready to participate in the business environment.
3.3.2 Economic context
Private sector experts taking part in the study hold the view that city management is
strongly related to business and corporate management. Therefore, in order to implement
smart solutions, Warsaw should present an integrated action plan of vision, goals and
market opportunities based on the     An interviewee
representative of a corporation currently operating in the smart city field stated: Smart city
management should be performed according to project management principles. In this
respect, smart city projects require careful planning, budgeting, scheduling and risk
management. Current work on the preparation of #Warsaw2030 strategy may serve as a
good example of changes towards implementation of business approach strategic
planning tools in the process. On the other hand, one respondent claimed that
development strategy 2030 has too short a time scope and suggested it should be at least a
strategy reacting until 2050.
Comparing city to a company some respondents mentioned that smart city is a
concept used by corporations to increase sales targets and market their products in the
knowledge economy based on high technologies, i.e. open data and Internet of Things.
Thus some participants of the study associated this term with being vague as it
encompasses practically all issues related to the city management. On the contrary, other
representatives of private sector claimed that however smart city model may be perceived
as a corporate marketing tool, it offers the city various branding benefits.
The majority of interviewees mentioned the fact that usually a lack of funds is the
primary financial barrier to implementation of strategic smart city investments. These
investments are extremely expensive and the  simply does not have enough
resources to finance them. In particular, intelligent transport system (ITS) projects related
to the implementation of an integrated traffic management system are very expensive and
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highly exceed the financial capability of the     
may offer a significant help for the city of Warsaw. Such help could be essential helpful
to the field of  public transportation system. For example: currently Warsaw
cannot afford the implementation of an integrated traffic management system in the city
from its own funds.
3.3.3 Social context
In the social context all respondents agreed that the smart city model contributes to
the enhancement of quality of life and social inclusion through projects engaging social
participation and by enabling more efficient communication and mobility in the city.
Interviewees representing public and private sectors stressed the need of a common
approach for 
smart city projects. It is the residents who should have the greatest impact on what is
happening in the city.
Both groups mentioned the participatory budget as well as revision of  
existing strategy in the form of #Warsaw2030 strategy and public consultation as
examples of citizens involvement in the strategic actions taken by the city also through
the use of IT tools. Moreover, the social dimension is used in the intervention application
19115. We use the potential of citizens who want to change the area in which they live,
mentioned a policy officer engaged in smart city actions about the current direction of
smart policy of Warsaw. Our interest is that the residents are involved, and this we call
smart.
3.3.4 Technological context
Two groups of interviewees stressed different issues related to technological aspect
of smart city. Although corporations incorporate other factors such as quality of life into
their smart city products, they were advocates of perceiving smart city through their
products, e.g. smart city platform, ready ICT-based solutions or urban applications. One
respondent also stated that we strongly associate the concept of smart city with the notion
of open data. This leads to the problem of data security and protection, which is one of
the biggest challenges of smart city strategies.
In terms of perception of technology by public sector representatives, it was
commonly admitted that ICT-based solutions, open data platforms and applications
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contribute to the core of the smart city. Nonetheless, in this case the social aspect of
technology was stressed more clearly. According to this group of research participants,
s.
Open data offered in a standardized format are the first steps towards technological
core system of a smart city as they provide strategic solutions to daily operations. Smart
projects related to technology should be complementary and should form one integrated
vision instead of being implemented ad hoc as now happens. Moreover, even if currently
it is difficult to predict what kind of projects will be needed in the future, open platforms
need to be designed in such a way that would enable further modifications without major
loses of content, therefore securing budgets for implementation and maintenance costs is
crucial.
Last but not least, it was mentioned several times that Warsaw observes current
trends in the area of smart city projects being implemented not only in Europe but also in
the rest of the world. Nonetheless, the city is not going to copy already prepared solutions
from other cities. Moreover, some experts, both from the private and public sector, raised
the issue of technological exclusion of elderly people or people who do not have access to
internet and mobile application and emphasize this issue as one of crucial obstacles on the
path towards the smarty city Warsaw.
4 Conclusions
The aim of this study was to investigate the concept of smart city in terms of the
implementation of specific initiates related to the daily operations, which are strategic for
a proper functioning of the city by using the case of Warsaw. The findings are both
theoretical and practical. The review of city documents and critical analysis of conducted
and planned projects prove that Warsaw is implementing smart solutions mainly due to
EU funding. Yet, they are not a result of one, overarching smart city strategy like in case
of Barcelona. They are rather random and realised in different sectors and regard various
city operations depending on external funding opportunities like in case of Cities on
Power or Open House projects.
Information gathered as a result of in-depth interviews with representative of private
and public sector about smart solutions proves not only growing demand for smart
initiatives in Warsaw, but also growing doubts regarding data security. Experts
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participating in the study shared the common opinion that smart city strategy is crucial for
strategic city management in Warsaw, but practical solutions were not developed yet.
It became visible that the smart city model is more promoted by the private industry
(calculated as a benefit and new opportunity) than by city representatives (seen mostly as
an additional cost). As the Warsaw case shows, these assumptions are not only theoretical
claims but also evidence-based findings. Warsaw is applying smart solutions but they are
results of ad hoc initiatives focused mainly on public transportation and energy efficiency
in buildings rather than integrated strategic plan followed by the governmental bodies and
acclaimed by the private sector.
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Authors’ Biographical Notes
Monika M. Kustra holds a M.Sc. from Blekinge Institute of Technology and Warsaw
University of Technology. She is a researcher and a PhD candidate at Open University of
Catalonia.
Dominika P. Brodowicz holds a PhD degree from Dublin Institute of Technology
(DIT). She is an Assistant Professor in the Innovative City Unit at Warsaw School of
Economics.
... Drawing from their experiences in Poland, Gontar et al. (2013), for example, asserted that, as long as only unrelated and isolated projects are implemented, we can barely talk about the formulation of 'real' smart cities; according to their study, no Polish city met this criterion at the beginning of 2010s. Their results are corroborated by Kustra and Brodowicz (2016), who compared smart-city developments in Warsaw and Barcelona. They found that, while smart-city projects in Barcelona have arisen from a comprehensive city-wide smart development strategy, similar projects in Warsaw show inconsistency and depend on external funding opportunities, focusing almost exclusively on public transport and energy efficiency. ...
... In order to answer the second research question, we want to contribute to the smart city discourse with a PESTLE analysis (Fig. 4), based on the work of Kustra and Brodowicz (2016), in which we summarized the most important influencing factors of smart-city development in Hungary. PESTLE analysis is an upgraded version of the PEST analysis, further developed by taking into account the legal framework and environmental factors. ...
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