The SGA 2015-2016 of Enterprise Europe Ouest project relies on a 6 year-strategy 2015-2020, based on a simple fact: SMEs are the backbone of the European economy as they support 2/3 of the employment. Their competitiveness is increasingly dependent on their capacity to innovate (develop new products or services, adapt to new processes or business models…) and to reach new markets, in Europe and beyond.
In order to exploit all these development opportunities, businesses need to find the relevant and efficient support services that Enterprise Europe Network can deliver.
In Western France, the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Bretagne and Pays de la Loire, in partnership with the regional agency, Bretagne Développement Innovation, have decided to propose a comprehensive scope of services meeting SMEs’ needs. The latter are split in 7 workpackages :
- 4 WPs are “service” activities : information and advice actions / matchmaking activities in order to develop commercial and technological partnerships / feedback activities for the European Commission /H2020 innovation services (enhancing innovation capacity and key account management for the beneficiary of the SME instrument)
- The other 3 WPs are “support” activities : promotion of the network in order to gain visibility / Networking activities / and management of the project.
WP4 is now a central part of the EEN Ouest implementation strategy, linked to WP1 advisory services, but also to WP5 on the promotion side. EEN has to demonstrate its ability to address innovation strategies and internationalization strategies. Until now innovation services were limited to partnering and IPR : now EEN staff can value expertise in innovation management thanks to the H2020 initiative.
Although it is rather difficult to measure real impact of the KAM/EIMC initiatives in so far as 2/3 of the cases are still opened, the qualitative results are satisfactory.
Concerning KAM, the EEN intermediary has been proved very useful to choose coaches and make sure that the coaching was launched. On 5 cases, only 1 is completed.
For EIMC, the impact is more indirect. Most beneficiaries clearly expressed a good satisfaction as far as the diagnosis and the action plans were concerned. However, some of them find it very difficult to devote time to the proposed actions. This is due to the fact that the EIMC initiative questions “processes”, organizations, strategies … in the mid and long term. Contrary to usual advisory services that are linked to specific projects.
