EU Teaches Small Companies how to Succeed in the Competitive Business World

Support is designed for entrepreneurs in the areas of machine manufacture, aeronautics, health are, biotechnology and the automobile industry.

The aim of the program is to aid Czech companies in attaining an influential position in the field of supranational companies.

Small and mid-sized Czech companies are technically proficient, but aren't as skilled at negotiating with customers or investors, nor can they gain the necessary loans, claim foreign investors operating in the CR. That's the main reason for the small success of Czech firms competing for customers of supranational companies. Helping to change these negative results will be a collection of experiences obtained from best companies on the basis of long-term comparison of their economic results, so called twinning.

Ambassador for the European Commission Ramiro Cibrian said yesterday upon commencement of the two-year program entitled Twinning II that "twinning, which is essentially a sharing of experiences from one company to another, is a fundamental mechanism for countries preparing to enter the (European) Union".

The principle of the 3-million EUR program, financed in equal part by the Czech Republic and the EU, is a system of business audits and seminars. Through these the company gains a comparison with world standards and a guide to learning how to achieve such standards. "The goal of the program is to increase the power of Czech companies to compete so that they would be the first choice of supranational companies that are looking for new suppliers", said the CEO of the agency Czechinvest, Martin Jahn.

Twinning II is designed for 50 companies from the automotive industry, from the bio-technology sector, and the health, machine and aeronautics industries. It continues the work of Twinning I from 2000-2002, involving 45 Czech and 11 supranational companies from the electronics sector. Proceeds of the Czech firms involved increased during the program roughly by 10 %, and others found new customers.

"One of the benefits of the program for us was gaining a new customer, the company Flextronic. Its R&D department became our customer even after the departure of the company from Brno. The main gain, however, was meeting people from the consultation company KPMG and learning their views on executive management tasks", said company director of Cube CZ Pavel Vlcek.

"The program showed us our company through the eyes of EU experts, and what we found most natural was comparison with the best European companies in the field. We compiled data obtained from this into plans," said Ivan Chrastek, company director of Kastek UB, which supplies plastic automotive parts.

The twinning programs are based on Irish experience. After their introduction here from 1985 to 1996, their share of purchases by supranational companies on the global market grew from 15 % to 22 %, and the volume of local supplies has grown by 260 % to 1.5 billion USD.

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Top 20 companies from Czechinvest's twinning programme

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