Project analyses need for real support services for SMEs
The first meeting of a project entitled 'Providing small enterprises with top class business support services' took place in Paris on 21 June, with the aim of identifying which services would best serve small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The event was attended by representatives of DG Enterprise, the French ministries of SMEs and Industry and 12 organisations from 10 European countries. It marks the beginning of a 24-month project which will draw up European specifications for support services for small companies. It is managed by the Fédération française de centres de gestion et d'économie de l'artisanat through the framework of AQCEN (Accès à la Qualité, à l'évaluation de la conformité, aux essais et à la normalisation). The project will also address the need to encourage more small companies to use support services. Recent evidence shows that many European SMEs are not using them, either through ignorance of their usefulness or the lack of relevance of the services offered. The results from a previous workshop held in October 2001 by CEN (Comité Européen de normalisation), which led to a European agreement on six key features in business support services, will form the basis for the AQCEN project.