SME HOSPITAL AND EUROPEAN NETWORK PROJECT OUTCOMES

Outcome (Oc) – “<Strengthening the mutual knowledge and understanding between Turkish Chambers and their European Counterparts: >

Within the scope of the project, SMEs from Afyonkarahisar visited Siauliai CCIC from Lithuania and Sibiu CCIA from Romania. 9 SMEs visited Romania and 5 SMEs visited Lithuania. During these study visits, both visiting CCI and hosting CCI made presentations about the way they work, their good experiences and good examples. Through the presentations chambers had a chance to getting to know each other, how chambers function, differences and similarities.

Through the study visits, Afyonkarahisar CCI had a chance to acknowledge a great experience about how their European counterparts function. This experience is very important in the progress of Turkey’s integration to the European Union. The SMEs who participated in the Study visit had a unique experience through the B2B meetings that happened during the study visits. During the B2B meetings, Turkish SMEs experienced how their European counterparts function, the strengths and weaknesses of doing business in European Union.

 (Possibly) intermediary Outcome 1 (ioc1) – < “Economically Better Society” >

One of the overall aims of the project is to increase the economical standards of the society through trainings, seminars, education programs as well as mentoring visits with the purpose of helping Turkey’s future integration to European Union. Project’s trainings have a great importance for achieving this goal. With the training programs we wanted people to learn about Entrepreneurship, Financial Management, Government supports for the people who is willing to start a business etc. Encouraging people by these trainings our project aims to create more businesses and by doing so increasing the added value created by the people. More businesses will create more jobs will create a better standard for the society. With the scope of the project, study visit to Romania and Lithuania was made. Also B2B meeting in Afyonkarahisar was held with the participation of Counsellor and attaches of the countries. This activity will improve the trade relationships between countries and also economy of the countries.

(possibly) intermediary Outcome 2 (ioc2) – < “Safety Investment” >

• Stable local economy requires very good planning and strategic decision making before starting a business. If one starts a business without doing a proper research such as market analysis, demand analysis and product positioning, this business are very likely to fail. With the training programs we organized within the scope of our project we aimed for possible entrepreneurs to learn the strategic decision making progress as well as conducting the right analyses before starting a business.
• To serve these goals mentioned above, we organized a seminars and training in the scope of the project. During this seminars and trainings, government experts from KOSGEB, EXIMBANK, Zafer Development Agency, Ministry of Trade and İŞKUR made detailed presentations about how to start a business, what supports entrepreneurs can get while starting a business, technological supports, investment supports, feasibility supports, risk analysis and more… We also aim to achieve project outcome named Increase Export Values by informing people about government supports on starting a business and creating more products.

(possibly) intermediary Outcome 3 (ioc3) – < “Qualified Workers” >

• Some of our project’s trainings highly focused on Financial Management and Risk Analysis, with the purpose of increasing the qualifications financial department workers and decision makers such as managers, finance and marketing department experts and accounting department officers. To serve this purpose, Bingöl CCI and Afyonkarahisar CCI organized “Financial Awareness Trainings” in the scope of the projects. On the other hand, E-Learning platform is the source of “Sustainable Finance Management Training”. Using E-Learning platform, SMEs can reach the education modules anytime they want. This E-Learning platform will stay active for long years.

(possibly) intermediary Outcome 4 (ioc4) – < “Increase on Bank Credit Amount” >

• Lack of financial knowledge, such as being able to calculating the time value of the money and credit cost leads SMEs to use their capital instead of bank credit in many situations, and in long term this leads SMEs not having enough cash to spend on daily activities when unexpected things happen. Our project aimed that every SMEs should be able to calculate these basic ratios so they will be able to understand the real cost of borrowing or not borrowing money from creditors at certain times. We wanted our education modules that is available to everyone for free on the E-Learning Platform covering this critical information. So, we made sure while the academics preparing the education modules they include these ratios in the modules.
• We have advertised the E-Learning platform using our chamber’s member database as well as chamber’s social media platforms to ensure our E-Learning platform is known by as many people as possible. Using social media and paid adds, we ensured more than 6000 people have seen the advertisement of our E-Learning Platform. These modules will also achieve the project outcome named “Decrease SME’ Bankrupts” by educating people about calculating the time value of the money.

(possibly) intermediary Outcome 5 (ioc5) – < “ Better Curriculum for Universities ” >

• The education modules we got prepared for our project has a unique aspect that traditional training materials doesn’t have. While being prepared, our project training modules was tailored for the use of SMEs. We wanted to achieve this experience by reviewing the modules and making them simplified so everyone can understand these materials. As we all know, not all the SMEs are educated people, especially in Turkey, most of the SMEs doesn’t have higher education.
• By simplifying these modules, we wanted to turn our education materials into a form that people which doesn’t have higher education also understand. After being prepared and revised, these education modules was shared with Afyon Kocatepe University and these modules importance was explained to the academics so they would consider these modules and the way they prepared while preparing the curriculum for the incoming education years.

(possibly) intermediary Outcome 6 (ioc6) – < “More Young Entrepreneurs ” >

• Unfortunately, in Turkey young SMEs forms only a small portion of total number of SMEs in the country. This is not what we want for our future as Afyonkarahisar Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Young people are more creative, they tend to take more risks and create more added value comparing to older people. A great percentage of young university students wants to work for a company or government instead of willing to start their own business. While SMEs are the most important milestones of European economy, our project cannot go without looking ways to encourage young people to start their own businesses and create value for the economy.
• While deciding the topics of our trainings, we carefully choose which institution and in which topics will be the main aspect of the training thinking about encouraging young people to create their own businesses. To serve this purpose, we have organized “Government Supports and Access to Credit System” seminar was organized on January 22, 2020. “Investment Incentives and Government Support” training was organized on June 10, 2020. In these programs we invited government experts and they made their presentations about government supports for people who want to start a business or wants to expand their business. These trainings were also aiming to achieve project’s outcome named as More Young Entrepreneurs and More New SMEs.