Supporting Non-technological Innovation in Owner-managed Manufacturing SMEs through increased capacity of business intermediaries

SNOwMan

PROGRAMME 2014-2020

priority

1 Innovation

objective

1.3 Non-technological innovation

SNOwMan

In the Interreg project SNOwMan business intermediaries, owner-managers and universities jointly developed and applied innovative tools and methods for business counselling tailored for owner-managers of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The challenge

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

SNOwMan
in numbers

2.09

Million

Total
1.63

Million

Erdf
0.00

Million

Eni + Russia
0.00

Million

Norway

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

The toolbox integrates facilitation tools leading through the 6-step counselling process (introduction, vision, identification of challenges and needs, strategy and action plan, operationalisation, measuring and evaluation outputs). The process is built on trust, openness and dialogue. The counselling process aims to find a common ground through a more personalised and trust-oriented approach. To look closely at the specificity of each stage of the 6-step process and to recommend possible advice and tools for facilitation purposes, the project developed counselling guidelines for the 6-step process. The new facilitation tools help business intermediaries establish during counselling a respectful and trustful relationship with owner-managers in unleashing the full potential of their SMEs.

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6-steps for innovation: online portal

All elements of the new counselling toolbox along with the supporting guidelines and tutorials were made operational and launched on the online portal. Users either can work directly on the portal or download all tutorials and available materials to their company's network. The portal offers a protected data storage box. Users can also find contact data to business intermediaries from Poland, Lithuania, Denmark and Finland offering a counselling support.

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6-steps for innovation: Inspirational catalogue

The catalogue presents success stories from Poland, Lithuania, Denmark and Finland, with the purpose of showing the real outcome and value of working with the newly developed counselling toolbox. The catalogue also provides an in-depth analysis of a well-working counselling when using the 6-step process. Moreover, the publication presents recommendations and advice for using the counselling toolbox in order to achieve the best possible results.

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Train-the-trainer curricula

The train-the-trainer curricula present a proposed structure for the training for business intermediaries that offer a counselling support to SME owner-managers. The curricula highlight the 6-step counselling process and introduce guidelines on how to use the newly developed tools for facilitation purposes. The importance of trust-building is spotted as an essential part of step 1 of the 6-step counselling process. Different techniques for training in small groups are presented to support the trainers. The KAIN Method (Knowledge Acquisition according to Individual Needs) is described. The curricula for the train-the-trainer programme are based on the view that owner-managed companies are a heterogeneous group that requires attention on their individual needs to exploit the full innovation potential of their SMEs. The curricula also include templates to collect the feedback.

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