Top 20 companies from Czechinvest's twinning programme

Top 20 companies from Czechinvest's twinning programme

CzechInvest, the Ministry of Industry & Trade’s agency for foreign direct investment, has announced (2002-02-06) that 20 companies will proceed to the final phase of its pilot supplier development programme.

"For the final phase of intensive consultancy and training support we selected 20 companies out of the 45 involved in the pilot supplier development programme. The focus of the programme which was started the beginning of 2001 is on the electronics sector, and its key objective is to maximise the business obtained by Czech suppliers from the electronic multinational companies which have been increasingly attracted to the Czech Republic in recent years. The programme is targeted at Czech-owned small and medium-sized companies,"

said Vít Švajcr, Director of CzechInvest’s Supplier Development Department.

General advice and support has been given to date to all 45 companies selected for the pilot programme through a series of business reviews and workshops on various management techniques. Company evaluation was based on the European Quality Model (EFQM). However, in line with the overall intention of the programme to help companies with the most potential, and because giving individually targeted support is very demanding in terms of staff and other resources, only the 20 best companies have been selected for the final intensive support phase of the pilot. Selection of companies has been based on a ranking produced by four criteria, which balance measurement of the companies’ current performance and their commitment and capability to improve shown over the earlier part of the programme.

Miroslav Somol, Vice Minister for Multilateral Policy at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in announcing the companies selected, said,

"the Ministry of Industry & Trade attaches major importance to the supplier development programme from the national point of view, and greatly values the support of the European Union in setting up this pilot. It is seen as a significant initiative in helping to improve the competitiveness of the Czech economy, and in widening the benefits of the high levels of inward investment which we are now achieving – as well as providing a more effective base for attracting such investment in the future."

"CzechInvest has sought to make the selection of companies for the final phase as objective and as fair as possible. We have all been impressed however by the potential and commitment of the companies participating, which meant that we had more candidates which could benefit for intensive support than places available. This is encouraging for the future and if the programme is successful, and early signs are favourable, we would plan to expand the programme to other sectors and companies. This final stage of individually targeted support is however crucial for achieving our objective of obtaining more orders from multinational companies for Czech suppliers,"

added Švajcr.

Source: CzechInvest.

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