FutureSME

The train the trainer session was developed to ensure that the member organisations, partners and their subject matter experts (SMEs) were ready to conduct workshops with SMEs in the various Countries that support the futureSME programme. It was essential that a review of all the materials developed were in a format, structure that ensured a consistent approach to educating those organisations that needed / requested futureSME support.

Once you have identified potential partners, you need to undergo a thorough selection process and you need to be ruthless in weeding out unsuitable collaborators. This is as much of a benefit to those ‘weeded out’ as it is to the sponsor. Working with incompatible partners, whether this is due to inter-personal or technical issues, is generally doomed to failure, no matter what the initial indications may show. One of the most common reasons for failure is collaborating with somebody who is too similar to yourself. This often happens because many of the organisations you know operate in the same industry networks as you. Collaboration works best in the opposite scenario – the more different partners are, the more likely their competencies complement one another.

Collaboration can be a great way to deliver the goals of your business, particularly if you can find someone who has skills or resources that you don't have or that would take you a long time to develop. However, finding partners is not so easy or, more correctly, finding the right partner is not so easy.

Crea-Si is a leading clothes service provider. The company was originally founded in 1989. Crea-Si is a partner of the biggest Italian fashion companies for the design and production of patterns, sizing, cutting samples and making prototypes. Read how RSO, through the futureSME project, helped Crea-Si by using the Business Diagnostic and Visual Strategy tools.

Ernst & Young Business School is a special branch of Ernst & Young where research, development and tailored managerial training activities are carried out. EYBS will be leading Workpackage 5 in the futureSME project, where it is dedicated to project output localization activities, it will provide support to research surveys and focus groups in Italy and it will keeo on the developing and carrying out test & verification activities, managing direct testing, localization and dissemination in Italy.

Yesterday Prof Umit Bititci and myself visited Castle Precision Engineering in Glasgow. Castle are an SME who have recently won Manufacturer of the Year 2010 and came second place in the IT category, so it was a much anticipated visit. Our visit was for the purpose of writing a case-study on their approach to systems, which will appear in the coming weeks.