SNOwMan
There is a difference in counselling owner-managed, or family-driven, small and medium-sized enterprises compared to ones run by employed managers. Owner-managers of SMEs tend to be driven by different considerations than SMEs run by employed managers. This includes owner-managers´ own family’s well-being, the employees’ situations, and lack of time for developing their own managerial skills. In owner-managed companies, the counselling processes are characterised by lack of trustful dialogue with the intermediary. Based on the observations and surveys, many owner-managers have a sceptical attitude to counselling from business intermediaries and academics.
On the other hand, business intermediaries tend to experience difficulties in establishing a transparent and rational counselling environment. Thus, owner-managers felt a lack of trust, common language, values and culture, while business intermediaries expressed difficulties in counselling owner-managers as they often had strong commitment and responsibility for the company.
In order to make counselling process easier, more transparent and well-going, the project gathered together business intermediaries, owner-managers and universities to jointly improve counselling.
Budgets
in numbers
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2.09MillionTotal
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1.63MillionErdf
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0.00MillionEni + Russia
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0.00MillionNorway
Achievements
Thirteen project partners and eight associated organisations cooperated across borders to improve the counselling process for SME owner-managers.
A tailored 6-steps counselling process established
Seventy-four SME owner-managers from Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, and Finland were interviewed about their preferences for counselling and the main challenges of this process. Based on the collected feedback, the partners developed a new counselling toolbox tailored to the needs of SMEs with five to fifty employees, which are both owned and managed by the same person. The main element of the toolbox is a 6-step process that contains the introduction, vision, identification of challenges and needs, strategy and action plan, operationalisation, measuring, and evaluating outputs. The process allowed the owner-manager and the intermediary to find the main challenges of the company and put the most pressing challenges in focus.
New tools and guidelines developed
Sixty-three owners of companies participated in the two-round tests of the new counselling tools. Based on the test results and the feedback received from four countries, the project developed the guidelines available on the online portal. Furthermore, the project elaborated train-the-trainer curricula in order to present the training methods for business intermediaries in using the 6-step counselling process.
The Interreg project SNOwMan used EUR 1.9 million to improve counselling of owner-managed manufacturing SMEs and align expectations between owner-managers and business intermediaries
Outputs
Counselling toolbox and guidelines
6-steps for innovation: online portal
6-steps for innovation: Inspirational catalogue
Train-the-trainer curricula
Project Stories
Partners
VIA University College
- TownHorsens
- RegionØstjylland
- CountryDenmark
- RepresentativeJonna Pedersen
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Gdansk University of Technology
- TownGDAŃSK
- RegionGdański
- CountryPoland
- RepresentativeJulita Wasilczuk
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Häme University of Applied Science Ltd.
- TownHämeenlinna
- RegionHelsinki-Uusimaa
- CountryFinland
- RepresentativeMinttu Lampinen
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
- TownLithuania
- RegionVilniaus apskritis
- CountryLithuania
- RepresentativeJelena Stankevičienė
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Hanseatic Parliament
- TownHamburg
- RegionHamburg
- CountryGermany
- RepresentativeMax Hogeforster
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
WITHDRAWAL (01.05.2019) BusinessHorsens
- TownHorsens
- RegionØstjylland
- CountryDenmark
- RepresentativeTessa Salling
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Business Development Centre Central Denmark SUCCEEDED by Business Centre/Hub Central Denmark (01.01.2019)
- TownAarhus
- RegionØstjylland
- CountryDenmark
- RepresentativePeter Ekmann
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Vilnius Industry and Business Association (VPVA)
- TownVlinius
- RegionVilniaus apskritis
- CountryLithuania
- RepresentativeSigitas Besagirskas
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Lithuanian Innovation Centre
- TownVilnius
- RegionVilniaus apskritis
- CountryLithuania
- RepresentativeMantas Vilys
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Federation of Finnish Enterprises in Häme
- TownHämeenlinna
- RegionHelsinki-Uusimaa
- CountryFinland
- RepresentativeJuha Haukka
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Pomerania Development Agency Co.
- TownGdansk
- RegionTrójmiejski
- CountryPoland
- RepresentativeMonika Dmitrzak
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Free Entrepreneurship Association, Regional Department Gdańsk
- TownGdańsk
- RegionTrójmiejski
- CountryPoland
- RepresentativeIwona Flis
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Finnish Institute for Enterprise Management
- TownKauhava
- RegionEtelä-Pohjanmaa
- CountryFinland
- RepresentativeJohanna Kokkomäki
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
Business Centre/Hub Central Denmark
- TownAarhus
- RegionØstjylland
- CountryDenmark
- RepresentativePeter Ekmann
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Web
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Project managerSusan DalumVIA University College
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Legal representativeHarald Elmo MikkelsenVIA University College
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Financial managerKarin ReinholtVIA University College
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Communication managerJulie May Wulff NielsenVIA University College