The article is based on the Trust Me – Training for Unique Skills and Techniques for Mentoring project (2015-2018) aiming to elaborate a training of future SME mentors in international cooperation. The project was funded by Erasmus+ programme, KA2 Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices, Strategic partnerships for higher education. The project developed a sophisticated curriculum for mentors and started the development of networks of mentors with the long term objective to create national networks covering regions, countries and whole European regions. The Trust Me Business Mentor Skills Development Programme is aimed for those individuals who support SME owners and CEO’s to grasp business opportunities, solve problems and grow their business using mentoring skills in order to be effective and provide real added value.

Authors: Miika Kuusisto & Ulla Kotonen

Performance of SME sector

According to the SME Performance Review of the European Commission (2017e), SMEs are an important part of the non-financial business economy in Europe, also in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania, the partner countries of the Trust Me (2017) project.

Table 1. Basic facts of enterprises in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania (European Commission 2017a, 2017b, 2017c and 2017d)

Enterprise birth rates in 2014 ranged, among these four countries, from 7.9 % to 10.2 %. The average employment size of newly born enterprises ranged from 1.0 persons to 2.2 persons. In 2013, enterprise death rates were particularly low, between 5.2 % and 11.5 %. The lowest numbers of all rates were in Finland and the highest in Romania. (European Commission 2017f.)

Table 2. Business demography in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania (European Statistics 2017f)

Based on the Small Business Act for Europe (SBA), the EU’s flagship policy initiative to support small and medium-sized enterprises, Finland’s SME sector has one of the most competitive profiles in the EU. The Finnish SME sector surpasses the EU average in seven out of nine SBA principle areas. (2016 SBA Fact Sheet – Finland.) France’s SBA profile is, in most areas, in balance with the EU average, whereas Romania’s SBA profile gives a mixed picture, and Hungary’s SBA profile contains many weaknesses (European Commission 2017a, 2017b, 2017c and 2017d).

Figure 1. SBA profiles of Finland, France, Hungary and Romania compared with EU averages. (European Commission 2017a, 2017b, 2017c and 2017d)

In entrepreneurship, Romania is above the EU average but in internationalisation, environment, and skills and innovation, far behind the EU average. Skills and innovation seems to be the most problematic, less than in other countries. The Hungarian SME sector trails the EU average in six principles.

It is recognised in most countries that SMEs need special help for their growth. Traditionally, help is offered by facilitating the external environment and developing entrepreneurial culture and environment as well as access to finance. Nowadays, strengthening the internal capabilities is often seen as an alternative or supplementary strategy for SME development, and training is recognised as an important tool for developing the internal capabilities of SMEs (Manimala & Kumar 2012).

Training practices in SMEs

Based on the last Continuing vocational training survey by Eurostat (2010), the ratio of training employees seems to increase with the growth of the companies. In Hungary, the training intensity differs significantly between the size-categories. There, small companies invest visibly less in the training of their employees than medium- and large-sized companies or Finnish or French small and medium-sized companies. However, the Hungarian training intensity is higher than Romania, where the training level is much lower than all the other three countries and the average of EU countries.

Table 3. Distribution of companies providing any forms of training to their employees (in % of all companies in 2010) in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania (Eurostat 2010).

In addition to the training of employees, also training and competence development of managers is important in the SMEs. The OECD (2002) has reported a positive correlation between the level of managers’ training and SMEs’ performance. The International Labour Organisation (2014) has assisted governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations, and other institutions in scaling up management training and establishing support systems to address the needs of SMEs. Over the years, development in expertise, networks and supporting organisations, especially for start-ups, micro and small entrepreneurs, has occurred. On the other hand, large companies have their own in-company training programmes, and they invest in the training of managers and leaders. The medium-sized companies and their managers seem to be in some kind of gap when it comes to their own development. The biggest reasons for differences between the training of SMEs and large companies are financial and time resources, as well as efficiency expectations (Doe 2017). First, fewer resources of SMEs typically means less funding for training and limited options to invests in development. Thus, it is also more important to show increased employee and company performance. The limited financial resources are also seen in the use of time and difficulties in balancing working time and training time. SME managers especially have difficulties in finding time for training.

Business mentoring

It is obvious that SME managers also need support and training.  Coaching, and especially mentoring, are seen as cost-efficient and flexible training methods for SME managers’ training. Utrilla & Torraleja’s study (2013) established that mentoring is an important tool for family businesses too. Both coaching and mentoring are “activities of professional and personal development with focus on individuals (and teams) and relying on the client’s own resources to help them to see and test alternative ways for improvement of competence, decision making and enhancement of quality of life. A professional coach or mentor is an expert in establishing a relationship with people in a series of conversations with the purpose of serving the clients to improve their performance or enhance their personal development or both, choosing their own goals and ways of doing it.” (European Mentoring and Couching Council & al. 2011, 3) Coaching is more about facilitating the client’s learning process by using professional methods and techniques, whereas mentoring is more like a development process involving a transfer of skills and knowledge from a more-experienced to a less-experienced person through learning dialogue (European Mentoring and Couching Council & al. 2011). Thus, business mentors should always have professional business competencies and experiences not only the methodological know-how.

In practice, business mentoring services and programmes are offered by a number of different national and regional SME supporting organisations as a part of their services. The mentoring services and programmes offered by the regional organisations of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, in Finland, the Institute of the Entrepreneurial Mentoring (IME) in France, the Association of Young Entrepreneurs’ (FIVOSZ) and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office in Hungary are examples of this kind of mentoring services. There are also specific non-profit national and international mentoring organisations, such as the Business Mentors Finland (Suomen Yrityskummit), which is the largest nationwide mentoring network (a non-profit association) of experienced entrepreneurs and business managers in Finland and a global mentoring network MicroMentor.

Some of the business mentoring services are sector specific (e.g. ICT specific mentoring by the ACE consortium in several European countries, social enterprise focused mentoring by NESsT and !GEN Social Innovation Agency in Hungary). Respective, some of mentoring programmes, such as the Women business leaders mentoring programme by Finland’s Chamber of Commerce, MentorNet – a network of female mentors by the Foundation for Small Enterprise Economic Development (SEED) in Hungary –  are targeted at certain smaller groups.  In addition to the free-of-charge mentoring services, there are a lot of different private consultancy companies, such as Berater SRL and Integra HR SRL in Romania, the Business Mentoring Network in the UK, and the Management Mentors Europe as a part of the worldwide Management Mentors, Inc.

Mentoring Training Programmes

If you are a good business manager, it does not necessarily mean that you are also a good business mentor.  Respectively, the mentoring skills without business experience are not enough for acting as a business mentor.  In general, there are a huge number of different mentoring training programmes in Europe but only part of them have focused on business mentoring, and even a few of them are accredited by the European Mentoring and Couching Council (EMCC). In August 2017, there were no accredited Finnish mentors in the EMCC European Individual Accreditation (EIA) Holders register (EMCC 2017a) or accredited Finnish mentoring programmes in the EMCC EQA Holders register (EMCC 2017b). At the same time, there were six accredited training programmes in France and two programmes in Hungary. In Romania, there were two individual EIA holders, but no accredited mentoring programmes. In Hungary, there were five EIA accredited and 46 in France.

Also, in Finland, several organisations, also some of the universities, organise/have organised non-accredited mentoring trainings. However, those trainings are not focused on business mentoring, but for example on the mentoring of teachers, students, young talents, immigrants, job-seekers etc. Also, different health care sector-focused mentoring trainings have become more common. One of the latest examples of business mentoring training programmes are Business Mentor –valmennus by Vocational Adult Education Sedu in 2009 and South Savo Vocational College together with regional enterprise organisations and the Finnish Business Mentors Association.

Business Mentors’ Competence Framework

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), which develops, promotes and sets the expectation of best practices in mentoring and coaching in Europe, is a key player in experience sharing of mentors. It has published a mentor’s competence framework in 2009 (EMCC 2015). The competence framework works as an assessment tool by providing a description of a mentor at four distinct levels of development (Foundation, Practitioner, Senior Practitioner, and Master practitioner). It helps mentors understand their level of development and training providers to evaluate the behaviours of a mentor, to categorise the level that the mentor and the level and effectiveness of mentor training programmes.

The competency framework (EMCC 2015) is suitable for all kinds of mentoring, including eight competence categories focusing on personal and interpersonal skills, as well as the mentoring process: 1) Understanding self, 2) Commitment to self-development, 3) Managing the contract, 4) Building the relationship, 5) Enabling insight and learning, 6) Outcome and action orientation, 7) Use of models and techniques, and 8) Evaluation. As a general competence framework for mentors, it does not include any business or professional specific competencies, which are mentioned for example by Clutterbuck (2005) and Clutterbuck & Lane (2005). Based on the above-mentioned competence frameworks of mentoring and the benchmarking of existing mentoring training programmes, a business mentoring competence framework was defined in the Trust Me project. The competence framework consists of 10 business skills, a mentoring process and four soft mentoring skills:

• Can analyse business environment
• Can analyse market demand and supply
• Can analyse, manage and develop business strategies
• Can analyse, manage and develop production
• Can analyse, manage and develop financial management
• Can analyse, manage and develop investments
• Can analyse, manage and develop human resources
• Can analyse, manage and develop marketing
• Can analyse, manage and develop logistics
• Can analyse, manage and develop research, development and innovation activities
• Can manage the mentoring process
• Has self-awareness and behavioural awareness
• Is able to manage mentoring relationships and communicate with a mentee
• Is committed to own learning and interested in helping others
• Is able to identify ethical questions and behave ethically

Trust Me Business Mentoring Training Programmes

Based on the identified competence requirements, a business mentoring training programme was developed in the international cooperation. The trainings are targeted to SME managers and to the master degree students with business entrepreneurship/business experience. Depending on the trainees’ backgrounds and experiences, training stays between levels one (Foundation) and two (Practitioner) in the four-level mentoring accreditation scale. The aim of the mentoring training is to give an understanding of the practice of mentoring and the core skills of mentoring. After the training, the mentoring trainee should be able to work as an internal mentor and carry out small external mentoring processes. The training makes it also possible to increase business know-how. The training consists of three contact days supported by an e-learning package and business simulation game. In an optimal situation, the training will continue with a real business mentoring case.

The training programme was piloted in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania during autumn 2017. The basic structure of the training was same in all of the countries, but the exercises and details were based on national/regional circumstances and the differences of target groups. In Finland, the first mentoring training pilot was 5 ECTS credits; it was offered as an elective study course for master degree students of Lahti UAS but also to regional SME managers and entrepreneurs. The master degree students of the universities of applied sciences are a good target group, because most of them have a long working history. One of the project’s results was also the Trainers’ Handbook, which includes a total of 18 exercises for each phase of the mentoring process:  five for the preparatory phase, six for the negotiating/contracting phase, four for facilitating mentorship, and three for closing the mentoring process.

Future of the Business Mentoring Training Programme

In the future, the project partners as the organisers of the Trust Me Mentoring Training Programme can apply for the European Quality Award (EQA), a quality standard for mentoring programmes, to make training more recognisable. Also, the mentors who completed the Trust Me Mentoring Training Programme can apply for the European Individual Accreditation (EIA), an accreditation system for individual mentors and coaches, after gaining mentoring experiences.

References

Clutterbuck, D. 2005. Establishing and maintaining mentoring relationships: An overview of mentor and mentee competencies. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 3 (3), 2-9.

Clutterbuck, D. & Lane, G. 2005. The Situational Mentor: An International Review of Competences and Capabilities in Mentoring. London: Routledge.

Doe, K. 2017. Five key differences in small business training vs. big business training. Small Business Digest [Electronic magazine]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://www.2sbdigest.com/training-differences-between-small-businesses-corporations

European Commission. 2017a. 2016 SBA Fact Sheet Finland. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.1017]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/22382

European Commission. 2017b. 2016 SBA Fact Sheet France. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/22382

European Commission. 2017c. 2016 SBA Fact Sheet Hungary. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/22382

European Commission. 2017d. 206 SBA Fact Sheet Romania. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/22382

European Commission. 2017e. SME Performance Review. Annual Report on European SMEs 2015/2016. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. http://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/performance-review-2016_en

European Commission. 2017f. Structural business statistics overview. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Structural_business_statistics_overview

European Mentoring & Couching Council (EMCC). 2015. The EMCC Competence Framework V2. [Online document]. [Cited 9.8.2017]. https://emcc1.app.box.com/s/4aj8x6tmbt75ndn13sg3dauk8n6wxfxq

European Mentoring & Couching Council (EMCC). 2016. EMCC Guidelines for Supervision. [Online document]. [Cited 9.8.2017]. https://emcc1.app.box.com/s/d4ydyhryok7usj2zp06dgcdiuho22lx6

European Mentoring & Couching Council (EMCC). 2017a. EMCC EIA Holders. [Online document]. [Cited 9.8.2017]. https://emcc1.app.box.com/s/vin9be1lljamrcjgxhkqmz3i4sibol8v

European Mentoring & Couching Council (EMCC). 2017b. EMCC EQA Providers. [Online document]. [Cited 9.8.2017]. https://emcc1.app.box.com/s/jsqd9fxbrcc8nfnrmc8fsm5am0ivzo45

European Mentoring and Coaching Council, International Coach Federation, Association for Coaching & Société Francaice de Coaching. 2011. Professional Charter for coaching and mentoring. [Online document]. [Cited 9.8.2017]. Available at: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/142-private-act–2.pdf

Eurostat. 2010. Continuing vocational training survey 2010. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/data/database

International Labour Organisation (ILO). 2014 Entrepreneurship and SME management training. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_emp/—emp_ent/—ifp_seed/documents/publication/wcms_175474.pdf

Manimala, M. J., & Kumar, S. 2012. Training needs of small and medium enterprises: Findings from an empirical investigation. IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, Vol. 1 (2), 97-110.

OECD. 2002. SMEs managers training. [Online document]. [Cited 8.8.2017]. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/cfe/smes/2492440.pdf

Trust Me –project. 2017. [Cited 15.12.2017]. Available at: https://www.trust-me-project.eu/index.php/en/

Utrilla, P. N. C., & Torraleja, F. Á. G. 2013. The importance of mentoring and coaching for family businesses. Journal of Management & Organization, Vol. 19 (4), 386-404.

About the authors

Kuusisto Miika, (Masters of BA), is a Senior Lecturer of logistics at Lahti University of Applied Sciences. He has been a project manager for Trust Me project, which developed a business mentor’s competence framework and training program in an international co-operation. His other competence areas are Supply web and business development, theses supervisions and RDI-activities.

Kotonen Ulla, DSc (Econ and Bus Adm), is an RDI Director of the Smart Business focus area at Lahti University of Applied Sciences. She has previously worked as an RDI Development Manager at Lahti University of Applied Sciences and FUAS – Federation of Universities of Applied Sciences, as well as a professor of accounting at Lappeenranta University of Technology’s School of Business.

Published: 19.12.2017

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/susanvg/3382838948 (CC BY-NC-SA)

Reference to this publication

Kuusisto, M. & Kotonen, U. 2017. Improving performance of the SME sector by developing business mentoring in international co-operation. LAMK RDI Journal. [Electronic journal]. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2017/12/19/improving-performance-of-the-sme-sector-by-developing-business-mentoring-in-international-co-operation/

This article describes the business development activities carried out in The Lahti Region Outlook – Improving SME’s Skills in the Future Business Development project (NÄKY project) at Lahti University of Applied Sciences in 2016-2017. For rapid and unpredictable changes in everyday operating environment, SMEs have to navigate and renew their own businesses. The aim of the NÄKY project is to enhance SMEs skills to anticipate week signals and support SMEs to exploit signals in business development. During the project SMEs have been trained to recognise the main outlooks and exploit them in businesses development.  The main partners of the project are the local Chamber, Universities and vocational institutes.

Authors: Jari Hautamäki & Jussi Eerikäinen

Background

McGuire (2002) underlines framing and mobilisation as the main development measures. According to Gibney et al. (2009, 19), framing means strategic rethinking and co-creation of things getting new shapes and crossing layers and borders. Framing filters knowledge and data flows relating to core development. To paraphrase Sotarauta et al. (2007), framing and filtering influence partners’ minds and support in finding a shared direction for focusing resources and know-how.

According to Solomon et al. (2007), customers and consumers are not only passive buyers, but are more active participants having the desire to be involved in companies’ product and service development. Arnkill et al. (2010) present that companies should undertake major transformations in their innovation processes and business models in order to deliver more valuable products and services to the market. New innovation strategies of companies often involve increasingly open business models, a greater focus on understanding latent consumer needs, and more direct involvement of users in various stages of the innovation process (Arnkil et al. 2010, 15).

The Regional Development Programme of Lahti University of Applied Sciences (Lahti University of Applied Sciences 2015) highlights the university’s mission to prepare regional, national and international business-based future knowledge. One of the main aims of the programme is to create prerequisites for exploiting future knowledge in local business development. Moreover, the Lahti Region Business Build-up Alignments 2016-2020 (Päijät-Hämeen liitto 2016a) notes that changes in business are permanent. Therefore, the role of anticipation and utilisation of changes have a great role in renewing businesses.  Renewing means implementation of changes in business based on an understanding of the influences of future phenomena. Furthermore, abandon from out-of-date business practices is needed.

The Lahti Region Development Programme 2018–2021 (Päijät-Hämeen liitto 2017) shows that digitalisation and internationalisation as well the new growth sectors like circular economy, design, event management and travelling will change the business environment and competition. That creates new kinds of opportunities to generate new business ideas and renew business development processes from the point of view of future knowledge and anticipation. In addition, the programme states that the Lahti Region should utilize more universities’, vocational institutes’ and international companies’ resources and competences in renewing businesses and creating new start-ups.

Lahti Region’s Plan in Preparation for Structural Change (Päijät-Hämeen liitto 2016b) highlights specialisation and test-peds based on regional strengths and opportunities. Development processes are seen as a broad network-based collaboration, which produces new kinds of perspectives and challenges relating to regional development. Furthermore, according to Lahti Region’s educational alignments, working-life and training processes should be more overlapped for involving students in the development of companies.

Business Development Challenges

Rapid and unpredictable changes in operational environment increase challenges in SMEs’ businesses. Preparing for positive or negative changes requires companies to navigate and renew their businesses. Enhancing competitiveness will be possible in companies that underline customer-oriented development and co-learning as well as long-term anticipation. To stay at the top of development is increasingly more important and relevant. (Hautamäki et al. 2013.)

According to Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu (2016) vital SMEs themselves actively participate in the creation of future and ongoing changes.  For clarification, SME’s strategies require recognition of future drivers and opportunities. Learning about the future could be promoted by anticipating in collaborative networks and by efficiently utilising the public sector’s stakeholder resources and prerequisites.

Future business will be generated as results of decisions in companies every day. Managers and staff of SMEs have to learn to recognise outlooks and new opportunities. Future knowledge enables the creation of future-oriented outlooks. Linking outlooks to companies’ business strategies enables mobilisation of development processes and innovative product and service development. (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2016.)

Current SMEs’ know-how in anticipation needs to be enhanced. However, SMEs’ resources for innovative development are normally not sufficient. There are usually problems with meeting future knowledge and business development.  Nevertheless, almost every SME should have innovative business inceptions and initials as well as a the capacity to recognise upcoming technology signals and market shifts over industry sectors (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2017).

Anticipation could be applied and mobilised in collaboration between the public sector and private companies in an agile and practice-based way. From the point of view of collaboration, local universities and business development stakeholders should take responsibility for creating a local future business platform. By combining separated resources to the platform, the effectiveness could be increased. (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2016.)

Network for mobilising development measures

The NÄKY Project (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2017) and anticipation network were established. The Häme Chamber decided to work as a mediating organisation between universities, vocational institutes and chamber-member companies. The shared aim was to establish a network over the Kanta-Häme and Lahti Regions for continuing local collaboration between education and companies, together with developing new practices. One aim was to test social media applications in disseminating results and develop multi-channelling communication practices in network (Eerikäinen & Hautamäki 2017).

Figure 1. The Anticipation Network of the NÄKY Project (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2017)

The aim of the project has been to create new SME-based agile development practices for recognising and visualising future trends and signals, as well as for exploiting them in SMEs’ business development. The duties of the universities have been to manage projects and create a development platform with different sorts of test-peds. The platform has been needed for testing cross-fertilization methods intended for colliding managers, experts and students of SMEs and development organisations (Eerikäinen & Hautamäki 2017).

The main aim of the project has been to create a regional operating model for enhancing SMEs’ anticipation skills and increasing companies’ capabilities and inspiration to develop and nimbly utilise the strategies of their own. For disseminating the project’s results, an externally funded national development programme and project will be prepared.

Preliminary Results of the Project

The NÄKY Future Map (figure 2) has been prepared on Trello community by experts and students working for the project. The map presents 100 main future trends and signals, which are significant from the point of business development today. The map is interactive and enables involvement in conversations relating to complementing and enriching the information included to single trends and signals. The NÄKY Future Map supports updating linked to https://trello.com/b/YUuunEwd. (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2017.)

Figure 2. The NÄKY Future Map (Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu 2017)

The regional operating model for enhancing SMEs’ skills in anticipation has been tentatively modified from the Quadruple Helix model (Figure 3). The final model will contain major stakeholders, relations, encounters, test-peds, platforms and practices fostering SMEs’ roles in the business development learning process.

Figure 3. Tentatively Operating Model based on the Quadruple Helix -Model (cf. Chesbrough & Bogers 2014).

The roles of the stakeholders of the operating model have been settled. Häme Chamber’s member companies’ role have been to learn, how to recognise future trends and signals as well as how to exploit the Business Model Canvas and Lean Service Creation in combining future signals and agile everyday business development together.

Through the experiments, the local Chamber’s, universities’ and vocational institutes’ assignments have been to find new collaborative ways to anticipate, enhance anticipation skills and foster SMEs’ business development processes. The Regional Council’s assignment has been to finance development measures of the NÄKY projects, with the aim of implementing regional strategies and programs, which direct regional development resources. The aim of the students has been to network with SMEs, creating new ideas and learning development processes typical for working life.

To combine the previously mentioned stakeholders and interested parties has been based on the involvement of a development context arranged by the projects. Every party has the same development platform, even though they each have different aspirations. The Context Management contains listed events, meet-ups and workshops, such as the following:

• NÄKY Kick-off Events, 24^th and 27^th of January 2017
• Häme Chamber Afternoon Event for Influential Persons, 16^th of February 2017
• Workshop: Building-up and Internationalisation 30^th of March 2017
• Workshop: Running-up Business by Utilising Business Model Canvas, 25^th of April 2017
• Workshop: How to Exploit Trends and Future Signals in Business Development, 27^th of April 2017
• Workshop: Drivers of Change and alternative Outlooks, 7^th of June 2017
• Workshop: How to Combine Ideas by using Agile Methods, 8^th of June 2017
• Workshop: Deploying Customer Experiences in Service Development, 27^th of September 2017
• Workshop: Social Media Applications in Marketing and Selling, 28^th of September 2017
• Future Business Summit, 9^th of November 2017

One of the most important outcomes of the NÄKY Project will be the local, future-based business development plan. Planning is still in progress without the final report. The aim is to create a new business development project, which is meant to disseminate good practices to other Chambers and inspire to create the same kind of development activities as the NÄKY Project. Moreover, the effectiveness of the NÄKY Project activities should systematically explore and implement measures by applying universities’ RD-opportunities (Eerikäinen & Hautamäki 2017).

For marketing workshops’ contents and results through multiple channels, some social media applications have been tested. The NÄKY Map of the Future has been created by applying the Trello application. Many newsletters have been sent and released by Facebook and traditional websites. The Häme Chamber’s online newspaper has been a workable channel for disseminating good practices and case stories (Hämeen kauppakamari 2017).

Summary

The main task of the NÄKY projects is to enhance SMEs’ skills to anticipate business transformation and utilise agile methods in business development. There are many reasons for that. According to Hautamäki et al. (2012), consumption has been a target for strong fragmentation in the last years. The same customer is able to belong to many different consuming communities and behave in many different ways. Consumption behaviour will increasingly change in the future because of the fast transformation of operating environments. That’s why marketing and selling have to be based increasingly more on consumers’ lifestyles, significances, images, myths, symbols, shared values, conversations and stories as well as acquisition practices.

Future knowledge is needed for developing businesses in companies and communities. Main challenge is to filter and make visible knowledge and information, which relates to development targets. The duty of Universities of Applied Sciences is to produce knowledge, which is exploitable from the point of view of the business development of working life organisations and networks. For this reason, Lahti University of Applied Sciences and Häme University of Applied Sciences have launched the NÄKY projects with close collaboration to the Häme Chamber.

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About the authors

Hautamäki, Jari, Ph.D., works as a director of regional development in Lahti University of Applied Sciences. His duties include developing collaboration between university and working-life and developing services for business organization.

Eerikäinen, Jussi, M.Sc. (Tech.), is a CEO of Häme Chamber of Commerce. Previously he has worked for Lahden Messut Oy and Yleiselektroniikka Oyj as a managing director.  A wide experience in foresight activities and business strategies belong to his competences.

Article picture by Jari Hautamäki.

Published 7.12.2017

Reference to this publication

Hautamäki, J. & Eerikäinen, J. 2017. How to Recognise and Exploit Outlooks in SME Level. LAMK RDI Journal. [Electronic journal]. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at:
http://www.lamkpub.fi/2017/12/07/how-to-recognise-and-exploit-outlooks-in-sme-level/