"Both regions involved in the action have had very good results in the H2020 SME Instrument EU Program. Since 2014, until 2018 a total of 124 SME beneficiaries of Phase 1 (73 in Valencia and 21 in Murcia) and 14 SME beneficiaries of Phase 2 (23 in Valencia and 7 in Murcia). Part of this success has had to do with different initiatives financed under COSME EEN SEIMED project. In the same period 2014-2018, a total of 1,080 participants have attended the different SME Instrument events (881 in Valencia and 199 in Murcia) and more than 120 companies have received individualized advice. Our KAMs do also attended several events like the “Networking Days for EEN KAMs” (sept 2017) in order to exchange experiences with other KAMs and improve the service. Finally, 84 cases have been closed (IVACE 65 and INFO 19), doing the needs Assessment, supporting the coach selection, validating the coaching plan and facilitating interaction between the SME, the Coach and the European Commission until the final assessment. Both partners feel that the EIMC service is actually a very valuable ""entry service"" to get to know deeply pre-selected companies and define tailor made action plans to boost innovation and competitiveness. Nevertheless, it is very important to mention that this service has a long learning curve and needs senior innovation advisors to properly deliver value added to the companies. Both partners are making efforts to continue improving the service through tailor-made trainings to our innovation advisors involved in the action. It is worth to mention that in November 2018, two of our KAMs attended a workshop organized by Enterprise Ireland on the Innovation Health Check tool and will attend in January 2019 a training workshop on Idea Management organized by EEN Austria. IVACE is investing time and resources to train their KAMs to deliver, not only the Coaching services but the EIMC services as well. The rationale behind this is that we think that KAMs tend to be the main prescribers of the EIMC service for two reasons: KAMs have a close contact with the CEOs of the SMEs, not only the SMEi beneficiaries but also the SoEs . Both segments of companies in general perceive our KAMs as a trusted advisor so they are more open to the uptaking of added value services like the EIMC.
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