Test your e-bio-business development competence with the Methodology for Assessment of e-bio-business supporters!

Methodology for Assessment of e-bio-business supporters is an important project output that allows business support organizations to assess their competencies and resources, especially from the perspective of bio-business development and consulting competence.

The Methodology is designed as an online tool, providing a Supporter Skill Analysis and the proposal of improvement in order to cover the competences required to support e-bio-businesses. The development of the Methodology for Assessment of e-bio-business supporters was led by our project partner from Germany, Regio Vision GmbH Schwerin. All project partners participated in the development of the methodology.

You can read why we developed an assessment methodology in the following interview with Thomas Blum, Managing Director of Regio Vision GmbH Schwerin

1. What competence does Regio Vision offer in the eRural project? 

Regio Vision is an owner-managed private company based in Schwerin in North-East Germany. We offer education services and are active in several European cooperation projects of the Erasmus+ and InterReg programs. Our team of 17 employees has a wide range of skills and experience, which we incorporate into our daily work. This includes skills assessment, skills development, individual coaching, overcoming barriers to employment, but also developing training programmes for a wide range of topics. In general, our focus is on imparting knowledge. Within the eRural Resilience project, we are responsible for the Solution 1 – the Methodology for Assessment of e-bio-business supporters.
2. What is Your opinion, why do we need to support bio-businesses in rural areas?
One thing that the Baltic Sea regions certainly have in common is that they are predominantly rural. On the one hand, this is our strength from an economic point of view, but it is also a certain weakness.
On the other hand, organic products need exactly these conditions. Therefore, growth in this area is a great opportunity for our common region. Our project aims to provide targeted support for organic producers and to assist in the introduction of online trading platforms.
3. Why was the Methodology for Assessment of e-bio-business supporters developed?
The Methodology is primarily intended for the assessment of the biobusiness field competencies of business support organization’s advisers and local government’s employees. But it can be used by anyone who wants to assess their biobusiness field competencies.

The eRural project consortium believes in the effectiveness of a systematic approach. That is why we started by developing a Competence Profile that describes what business development organisations need to know and be able to do in order to provide effective support to bio-businesses. The Competence Profile describes the required skills and competences that the institutions have to gather in order to cover the required knowledge to support the businesses in their transition to bio-businesses and e-businesses.

Our second step is an online self-assessment that we developed ourselves. This allows the managers and employees of economic development agencies to assess themselves and receive individual feedback. Areas where their skills need further development are then linked to our video database so that participants are quickly and directly referred to the learning opportunities. With this methodical approach, economic developers can very quickly develop the necessary skills to support bio-businesses.
4. Is the assessment online tool now ready for use by everyone?
Yes, our tool is already online and can be used by anyone who is interested in the topic. We placed a great deal of emphasis on data protection from the outset of the development. Therefore, no personal data is collected – only the affiliation to an
organisation.
The tool is currently available in English, but translations into other languages are already in the works and will be activated shortly.

• The link to the English version: https://ebiobusiness.eu/assessment/

5. How are the combined results for the organization summarised? Who has access to
that report?
All project partners (but only them) have access to the anonymised data. This means that they can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each participating organisation in the areas analysed – Business and Management, Digital Knowledge, Bioproduction and Sustainability, and Networking – and thus provide even more targeted support.
6. During the project – bio and digi hubs – were created. How may these hubs’ experts support business support centres to overcome the gaps identified during the assessment?
The idea for the two hubs arose from the necessity to provide specialised knowledge in the consulting process. Some of the project partners have this knowledge and by setting up the hubs, all other partners in the consortium, as well as their practice partners, can access this knowledge very quickly and directly.
7. Is the Methodology 1 scalable?
Yes, our methodology and online platform are more scalable – they can be adapted to other subject areas with a reasonable amount of effort and translated into any language.
8. What is the international value and sustainability of the solution?
I am convinced that our solution offers real added value for the organic production industry and the economic development institutions that support it. Through international cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, we have been able to combine our experience and knowledge and thus achieve significantly more than we could alone.
During the remaining project period, we will intensively test and improve this and another solution in practice, thus achieving truly effective promotion of e-bio producers.

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