Enterprise European Network Activity 1: Provision of value-added services to clients
Introduction: EEN Requirements
Once the consortium for your EEN programme has been established and the proposal is ongoing, it is necessary to fulfil a series of requirements established in the document: Call for Proposals, released by the European Commission. This document is the base guide to follow for the best development of a proposal, as it contains the guidelines commandatory for every project. Specially for Enterprise European Network Activity 1: Provision of value-added services to clients
| Remember to check the Call for proposals document by the EC that includes the instructions for every proposal and acts as a very helpful tool. |
Activity 1: Providing added value services to customers
This article develops the requirements for Activity 1, for Providing added value services to customers[1], a crucial part for the presentation of a good Enterprise European Network project.
Note how this activity is the most important one to work on since it is the most focused on customer care and service, and the one that allocates the highest percentage of total effort in terms of time (at least 65% of the total), and the EEN is a programme mainly focused on providing services to clients through experts advice.
The main objective of the Network is to offer advisory services on innovation and technology transfer, EU legislation and standards, EU policies and programmes, and thus to make European SMEs more competent in terms of internationalization, digitalization, innovation and sustainability. For this purpose, those advanced advisory services provided that lead to a significant positive outcome for the client give rise to Advisory Achievements.
Advisory areas
These value-added services should be offered by all consortia, and cover the following advisory areas:
–SME capacity building: objective focused on solving SME problems in terms of internationalisation.
There are a number of tools that will facilitate the achievement of this objective: specialised meetings with clients, learning workshops, organisation of study tours, seminars, learning activities…
–Sustainability: the Network will help SMEs in their transition towards more sustainable business models and more efficient processes and infrastructures.
Each consortium of the Network must appoint at least one Sustainability Advisor, who will help to identify sustainability needs and provide access to relevant training and capacity building activities such as awareness raising activities, sustainability assessments, expert advice sessions…
–Internationalisation: network consortia are expected to provide support to companies to access international markets and business opportunities, through advisory services that support the partnership process.
–Digitalisation: Network consortia should raise SMEs’ awareness of the challenges and opportunities of digital technologies to improve their business models.
Through seminars and workshops in cooperation with experts from the European Digital Innovation Centres, SMEs will be helped to introduce them to European digitisation services.
-Regional integration: consortia should liaise with the different managing authorities in charge of SME-related programmes to create well-functioning working relationships and look for possible collaboration possibilities.
–Single Market: basic advisory services on EU legislation and policies in the Single Market will be provided through the consortium, ensuring that clients plan ahead for the formalities they may have to fulfil and helping to overcome the specific obstacles they face in the Single Market.
–Innovation: Innovation consortia are expected to provide innovation capacity building services for SMEs. This may include innovation capacity assessment, gap analysis and the provision of specific services to address identified gaps.
This service may be provided through tools such as innovation methodology workshops, awareness-raising talks on property protection, etc.
–EU funding: the objective will be to provide advice on the types of EU funding and other sources of funding relevant to a client’s needs. These advisory services may be more individualised depending on the needs of the client and the areas of action they intend to finance (R&D&I, quality schemes…). Each consortium should identify at least one resource person with specific expertise in the area of access to finance.
-Feedback from SMEs: consortia will collect SMEs’ views on specific EU policies, actions and legislation, in response to the specific priorities announced by the Commission, by appointing at least one contact person to collect SMEs’ views, who will act as an intermediary in relation to the above-mentioned activities.
Recommendations
Addressing each of the named aspects in a correct and justified way in the EEN proposals is essential to achieve a positive evaluation of the project and to obtain the necessary funding for its implementation.
[1] Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/smp/wp-call/2021/call-fiche_smp-cosme-2021-een_en.pdf
