Altfinator project, where PEDAL Consulting is a partner, prepared an analysis on Alternative financing in European countries. It offers an overview of the situation and challenges of Alternative financing in these countries as well as the ways to support the growth of AF in each respective country.
Next up in the series is Portugal, to find out more about the situation in this country, check out the country brief here: Infographic_04_PORTUGAL_20190130
Altfinator project, where PEDAL Consulting is a partner, prepared an analysis on Alternative financing in European countries. It offers an overview of the situation and challenges of Alternative financing in these countries as well as the ways to support the growth of AF in each respective country.
To learn more about situation in Slovakia check out the country brief here: Infographic_05_SLOVAKIA_20190130
Alternative Financing is an important source of financing for entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs. However, there is a huge gap between Southern, Central and Easter Europe which are lagging behind Northern and Western Europe in terms of alternative financing volumes (total and per capita) and versatility of funding sources.
Altfinator, where PEDAL Consulting is a partner, is a project funded by Horizon 2020. Its aim is to solve this problem by facilitating the transfer of best practices from more advanced to less advanced markets, and by designing and implementing a capacity-building strategy to improve the provision and absorption of AF in South, Central and Eastern European countries.
First issue of Altfinators second Newsletter is here: ALTFINator_Newsletter_#2
Newsletter includes following articles:
Altfinator makes public webinar on current state of crowd investing in Europe
Bridging the gender gap in Europe in regard to access to financing
Capacity Building Strategy validated to foster the usage of alternative financing among SMEs
An in-depth report on alternative financing ecosystems
Identifying and analysing best practices of alternative financing
Altfinator’s engagement and capacity building activities
In the framework of the Tenderio project coordinated by PEDAL Consulting, we prepared 9 strategies on how SMEs can participate and eventually win public tenders abroad. These strategies were formulated together with the IPPON, PPACT and SESAM projects.
Strategy #4
Consortium based approach.
Brief explanation of the tactic
Before a call for tenders is published, a core group of companies which have worked successfully
with each other in the past sets up a ‘nucleus’ of the consortium. Once the tender specifications
are known, they may invite other partner(s) in order to fill in the missing competences or
references.
Real life example
Estonian, Slovak and Portuguese companies, which have worked previously successfully on the various EU funded (Horizon 2020) projects identified relevant calls published by DG CONNECT. The time for the preparation of offers was rather short, but since they had the majority of the necessary references and documentation ready from the past collaboration, they decided to invite one more domain expert and submitted the proposal successfully within the deadline.
For more information, please contact r.miskuf@pedal-consulting.eu
Nowadays, it is difficult to make any meaningful and long-lasting innovation without including SSH experts. The trend can be seen in industry, which is making a sharp turn from the expert mind-set, based on engineering, to people-centred mind-set, which is based on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration between ICT and SSH experts.
HubIT, where PEDAL Consulting is a partner, is a project funded by HORIZON 2020 running from 2017-2020 led by the motto “Technology with and for Society”. Its aim is to create an ecosystem that will encourage interactions between ICT stakeholders and Social Sciences and Humanities researchers that will assure that ICT development takes into account societal needs.
Second issue of the HubIT Newsletter is here: HubIT_Newsletter_#2.
In the framework of the Tenderio project coordinated by PEDAL Consulting, we prepared 9 strategies on how SMEs can participate and eventually win public tenders abroad. These strategies were formulated together with the IPPON, PPACT and SESAM projects.
Strategy #3
In certain tenders, the quality/price ratio is (still) 60/40, motivating companies from lower income countries (Eastern and Central Europe) to apply.
Brief explanation of the tactic
The SMEs located in lower income countries can specifically search for tenders where the financial offer has a greater weight.
Real life example
In 2014, a SME from Central Europe participated in such a call (for DG CONNECT) – being able to meet the basic thresholds required in the tender specifications and was able to win the tender due to the price offer. The price it offered was lower than what the competitors were willing to do and even though it scored less in the qualitative part, the low financial offer secured them this contract. Nevertheless, the financial offer they submited was still economically advantageous for them.
Fore more information, please contact r.miskuf@pedal-consulting.eu
In the framework of the Tenderio project coordinated by PEDAL Consulting, we prepared nine strategies on how SMEs can participate and eventually win public tenders abroad. These strategies were formulated together with the IPPON, PPACT and SESAM projects.
Brief explanation of the tactic
Using a benchmarking service and teaming up with previous winners.
A benchmarking service is offered by the Tenderio. With this service, any company can benchmark their business against companies which have been successfully awarded contracts, in the segment or the sector related to their expertise. This will give them insight into best practices, and how to improve their chances of submitting offers that will ultimately yield success. Furthermore, companies will have the opportunity to use this service to identify opportunity niches in the market. Such valuable information can be used to develop opportunities in often overlooked market segments, where the potential for growth for them through successful bidding is greatest.
Real life example
Here, an SME in Romania being interested in applying for a specific tender used the benchmarking service to know who won a similar tender in the past, where they were from and the offers they received. Once they gathered all the requisite information, they reached out to the former winner from Slovakia offering to partner with them to answer the current call with an offer of some value addition to the process and when they reached an understanding, they answered (and won) the call together.
Fore more information, please contact r.miskuf@pedal-consulting.eu
In the framework of the Tenderio project coordinated by PEDAL Consulting, we prepared 9 strategies on how SMEs can participate and eventually win public tenders abroad. These strategies were formulated together with the IPPON, PPACT and SESAM projects.
Strategy #1
Submission of an “Expression of Interest” and upon the “Invitation to participate to tender” subcontracting or partnering with a company which has not expressed an interest before (and therefore, in many cases is not eligible to bid) and is best positioned to do the job.
Brief explanation of the tactic
There was an expression of interest (pre-qualification notice) published by a procurer inviting a number of service providers to submit their offers for supplying a Media Contact Database for the EFSA in Italy.
Real life example
PEDAL Consulting (SME), located in Slovakia, identified the opportunity and answered the call to the expression of interest based on which it was later invited to prepare the full offer. When preparing the application, this SME did not have the technical expertise to execute the tender. So it looked around Europe for a company best suited to execute the tender. This company was found in England. PEDAL subcontracted this SME to do the job as it was best positioned to implement the tender and tender specifications allowed this. PEDAL won the tender in Italy and they are implementing the project together with the subcontractor in the UK.
Fore more information, please contact r.miskuf@pedal-consulting.eu
The second week of October saw the PEDAL Consulting team in Bratislava, to organize the first project meeting of the €300,000 project to continue the YouNG Goes Euro work on enterprise education.
The work is being funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ fund and will see enterprise education principles being embedded within core curriculum subjects.
The project will also create a short professional development programme for teachers to help them better understand the principles of enterprise education and to embed them within their subjects. As well as developing a framework for work experience, mentoring guidance and a condensed version of the programme.
The meeting was enthusiastically attended by our the project coordinator NGi UK Ltd and partners from Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology; Junior Achievement Bulgaria and ZSL a technical school in Poznan, Poland. All of whom will be adding their own particular expertise to developments and adapting materials for use within their own countries.
The importance of developing enterprise skills within young people was emphasised by all partners as being a vital skill set that needs to be developed within young people to enable them to compete effectively in the workplace. All partners identified this as a missing component within the formal education systems of their countries, re-emphasising this as a global issue, not just a local one.
Regular updates about the project are available here.
Nowadays everybody speaks about climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, and consumption without respect to the ecological boundaries of our planet. At the same time, the need to achieve sustainability constitutes a strong incentive to reach the Sustainable and Consumption Development Goals and to reinforce Europe’s position in a highly competitive global economy. Bio-based products provide an opportunity to contribute to sustainable solutions.
BIOVOICES, where PEDAL Consulting is a partner, is a project funded by HORIZON 2020 which started at the beginning of January 2018 and will run until the end of 2020.
The first edition of the BIOVOICES newsletter is here: BIOVOICES_Newsletter_#1.
The HubIT First International Workshop was held on the 3rd of December 2018 at Holiday-Inn Vienna City, Vienna, Austria.
The International Workshop included the following activities:
– Present the HubIT project, the initial European Framework Model and the assistance it has to offer.
– Gather inputs for the concept of RRI and the European Framework Model of responsible ICT innovation.
– Facilitate best practice sharing and discussion of the concept of RRI and its application in ICT.
– Active (and moderated) matchmaking to engage SSH knowledge and results and identify user needs related to ongoing and future ICT projects; initiate new responsible and inclusive ICT project ideas addressing the identified challenges.
More information is available on the project website http://www.hubit-project.eu/
The BIOVOICES consortium organized with great success the Focus Group Workshop on November 13th and 14th, 2018, in Rome, Italy. The workshop brought together 59 multidisciplinary experts in the knowledge fields of bioeconomy representing consumers/ general public, business community, research community and policy and public administration.
The first day of the Focus Group workshop was devoted to validating, enriching or revising the challenges identified by BIOVOICES to date and exchanging ideas on how to better address them during Mobilisation and Mutual Learning (MML) events, namely: Which are the key discussion topics that better address each challenge and in which application sector(s) is each challenge more evident. The second day was devoted to discussing the organization of BIOVOICES MML events and particularly at which level (local/regional, national or European) each challenge should be (better) addressed during a mutual learning event and who should be involved.
During the workshop, many valuable ideas and arguments were shared and the BIOVOICES team got very good messages to adjust activities and all participants had a very good chance for networking and sharing information.
The European Bioeconomy Network supported the BIOVOICES Focus Group, integrating the valuable knowledge of projects AlpBioEco, AgriMax, Biobridges, BioCannDo, BioHorizon, BIOPEN, BIOREGIO, BioSTEP, BIOVOICES, BIOWAYS, BLOOM, CommBeBiz, InnProBio, ISABEL, RoadToBio, STAR-ProBio, Transition to Green Economy in the discussion.
PEDAL Consulting is a partner in the Biovoices Project
