Over 30 Branch Leaders from the Riyadh Entrepreneurship Institute, Saudi Arabia participated to a five-days intensive training program on “The Italian Entrepreneurial Model” that was organized by the International Network for Small and Medium Enterprises – INSME.
The tailor-made training initiative – the first of its kind – was fruitful for a double reason: on the one hand, the implementation of a holistic approach to the training activity, providing a detailed picture of the Italian entrepreneurial system as a whole. From idea generation to implementation, the training initiative provided participants with a relevant set of skills to enable an effective implementation of support measures to SMEs in Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, the training initiative was an excellent opportunity to deepen the collaboration with the National Entrepreneurship Institute and lay the base for future projects of mutual benefit.
Qualified trainers featured their experiences with support programmes for SMEs during the 5 days.
The first day focused on the Eco-System for an Entrepreneurship Organization underlining that the key actors a start-up has to deal with are advisors, investors, corporations and research organizations. In addition the Italian Entrepreneurial Model was featured considering the opportunities that venture capital offers. Skills are of paramount importance, therefore a training module was dedicated specifically to the Skills for Branch Leadership on Creativity and Idea Management emphasizing that innovation can be driven by creative products and services.
During the following days Innovative vs creative thinking was a main part of the agenda to take advantage from challenge driven innovation and enable the companies to solve problems faster, more cost-effectively and with less risk. Best practices on effective communication and marketing were shared with special emphasis on “Non-Conventional Marketing” to provide the audience with practical advices for a strategic business planning.
As one of the priorities the always present question on “How to get over the valley of death and grow a business to a medium sized company in a sustainable manner” was tackled to suggest new methodologies to support entrepreneurs and researchers unlock their potential through a number of capacity building activities. Entrepreneurs Awards are launched everywhere to push the interest of the young generations to engage as entrepreneurs. By taking a closer look at the model analysis of business idea competitions dos and don’ts according to the targets, the objectives, the actors/partners involved and the related rewards to be considered were discussed and evaluated by the audience.
By adapting the methodology to concrete issues in Saudi Arabia with regard to the Business Clinics that have been created throughout the country the participants jointly discussed the opportunities of improvement thanks to strategic networking and reviewing of a common vision with all national stakeholders of the innovation eco system in loco.
An interactive roundtable on IPR issues in cooperation with the Technology Transfer Office at La Sapienza University of Rome on how to commercialize research results focused on the procedures to support inventors and subsidize small companies to invest in intellectual property rights protection and exploitation.
The last day was dedicated to expert meetings with selected stakeholders and institutions in Italy. The participants were motivated to share their thoughts and comments and allowed the speakers to deepen their expertise and learn from the insights given by the Saudi delegation.
The INSME Secretariat has analyzed the evaluation survey and the impact of the training initiative to come up with new ideas and to constantly enlarge the Training Curriculum of the Association in the near future by involving experts from universities, international organizations and knowledge owners (as the OECD) and private/public intermediaries and multipliers as well as financial actors. The fact that INSME is a world-wide network stands for globally proven expertise that can be shared with other delegations from institutions all around the globe.
