All partners prepared the planning, development and provision of the new services in a uniform and standardized way.
A pool of potential SME candidates was developed based on the knowledge and experience of the nominated EEN experts on the Greek market. Α structured process was followed so as to carefully identify and select the companies that have the potential to benefit most and provide real impact in terms of jobs, growth and European economic impact. The selection was based on predefined criteria, agreed by all partners at the proposal stage, incorporating both geographical and sectorial criteria. National priorities for research and innovation in Greece and priorities of the Smart Specialization Strategy of each region were taken into consideration. Common high level quality standards and predefined procedures were developed for all partners to maximize the efficiency of the service.
The existing infrastructures and networks of the partner organisations were used to identify innovative SMEs with the highest potential. The Network contacted the selected group of innovative companies as early as June 2014, with an estimated deadline for expression of interest at the end of August 2014. The expressions of interest were ranked by the nominated EEN experts and a shortlist of SMEs with possible recipients of the service were drafted. The cases of clients were distributed among the partners/ nominated experts based on geographical location and thematic expertise.
The total number of companies that were contacted depended on the results of the SMEs Instrument call for proposals and the number of workdays spent for the service packages provided. However, since no SME Instrument beneficiaries were identified, all companies were offered the service for enhancement of their innovation management capacity and they were notified by October 2014, to allow sufficient time for evaluation and service provision. The final target audience included SMEs with strong innovation capacities in general, as well as a desire (and a potential) to grow, but lack the strategic innovation management capacities to achieve this goal.
Technical standard CEN TS 16555-1 and IMP3rove tool for assessment were used by nominated experts of the Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas consortium in order to deliver eventually 39 service packages by the end of December 2014.
During the period of the project, no Greek beneficiaries of the SME Instrument were identified; thus Key Account Management (KAM) services were not applicable.
