Baltic Supply Newsletter 1 - April, 2011

BalticSupply 1st newsletter edition - April 2011Dear readers,

This first Newsletter presents BalticSupply in close cooperation with our twin project North Sea Supply Connect! The two pro-jects started separately, but are growing together continuously.

We just took a huge step forward at our first joint partner meeting in Brussels. Business organizations across the two part-nerships are now collaborating to support their regional Small and Medium-sized enterprises in entering new transnational markets. Joint Service offerings will be the key factor to this aim: Matchmaking events, partner search, tendering information, self assessment tools, training and coaching will soon be available on the respective project websites.

However this is only the beginning: we aim to establish a virtual Business Development Platform on the Internet that is firmly rooted in the ‘real life’ services of our project partners.

Read about the huge support we received from our first Joint Political Advisory Group Meeting that gathered high level rep-resentatives from ten countries. Promotion and internationalisation of SMEs is clearly in the focus of their respective regional and national policies so that they are all enthusiastic about our projects.

What will be in it for you? Content, inspiring contacts and in the end, hopefully, contracts! We try to link smart: Read for exam-ple about the connection to the Enterprise Europe Network EEN and a Swedish cooperation further on.

Come and see us at one of the events listed in the event calendar and check our project websites for regular news.

Caroline Privat

project manager BalticSupply

ContactsProject Management Caroline Privat at Free Hanseatic City of Bremen

[email protected]

Communication ManagementAllan Ottesen at South Denmark European Office Brussels

[email protected]

www.balticsupply.eu

BalticSupply Newsletter - Issue 01 - April 2011 - Page 2

Improving the competitive advantage of regional SMEsOverview of the twin projects

BalticSuppy and North Sea Supply Connect are Eu-ropean funded projects, which are aiming at creat-ing better business opportunities for the many Small and Medium-sized businesses (SME) located in the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. The projects are focusing on the European supply markets and want to set up supporting structures for SMEs in order to increase access to inter-regional supply markets in Northeastern Europe.

Key objectives

• To support SMEs in access supply chains across the Baltic Sea and North Sea region

• To develop a business development platform, which will include training & innovation programmes, electronic SME innovation partnership exchanges, company register / se-arch facility

• To remove barriers to trade, creating new markets and new opportunities for transnational trade and relationships

• To establish three Supply Clusters for Energy, Food & Health, and the Maritime sector

Key benefits for SMEs

• To support business growth alongside developing innova-tion based relationships

• To help SMEs identify opportunities to access tendering opportunities

• To improve SMEs capacity to trade within the Baltic Sea and North Sea region

Key benefits for OEMs

• Identify new innovative products & services

• Support business growth and expansion

• Identify opportunities to collaborate with innovative SMEs to develop new products

To accomplish the challenge

The projects are comprised of partners that work with busi-nesses every day: regional development agencies, chambers of commerce and intermediary organisations that know about the challenges that face our regional economies. Coupled with the expertise from knowledge institutions and policymak-ers from the regions, the projects will successfully deliver the aforementioned benefits to SMEs. The project partners are identifying businesses across the entire region, identifying their specific needs, but also their areas of expertise and their

competences, and with this knowledge aim to match the buy-ers with the suppliers and provide businesses with the right tools for tendering and self-assessment.

Both projects are setting up virtual SME supply clusters with a Business Development Platform that will help business navi-gate the procurement processes of larger businesses.

Partnership28 partner organizations from eleven countries: Belgium, Den-mark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Scotland and Sweden

You can find out more about our projects at www.balticsupply.eu and www.northseasupplyconnect.eu.

Business Development Platform rooted in off-line Services Services such as coaching, training, partner-search and funding are the daily business of most of the projects’ partner organizations. This way Business Development Organizations, Regional Development Agencies and Cluster Organizations play an impor-tant role in order to enable Small and Medium-sized companies (SMEs) to establish new business con-tacts with OEMs. The Business Development Plat-form (BDP) follows the same objectives and will be based on existing services. To increase the efficien-cy of the partners’ work and the benefits for the com-panies the BDP adds new essential elements.

Transregional Cooperation and Internet-based Ser-vices

The first step is to establish transregional cooperation with-in the participating partner network, especially the Business Development Organizations. The second step is to share and provide advanced tools and methodologies to meet the re-quirements of SMEs. Modern Internet technology will help on both sides to disseminate the offered services and allow ef-ficient teamwork. In that way the BDP can be defined as jointly provided services that are offered within a combination of an internet-based portal and related organizational structures and processes (off-line Services). That way the BDP works as an intelligent link between the existing structures of Business De-velopment and the needs of OEMs and SMEs in and across the regions.


Start in 2011

For the start of the BDP in the second half of 2011 we will fo-cus on services which enhance direct contacts between com-panies or stipulate new business opportunities: joint events, matchmaking, self assessment and training on tendering processes. Information on leading-edge technology trends, derived from innovation surveys, will also be part of the BDP service concept.

More services to come

The partners of the BalticSupply and the North Sea Supply Connect project are currently defining the service portfolio for the BDP. They also take into account existing forms of tran-sregional partnership such as the EEN Network. Excellent re-lations to other public institutions, industry associations and private companies will ensure the success of the two projects.

Enterprise Europe Network and Baltic-Supply join forces to create new busi-ness opportunities for innovative SMEsThe Enterprise Europe Network brings together busi-ness support organisations from across 47 coun-tries. They are connected through powerful databas-es and know Europe inside out. What’s more, they have been working together for years, some even for decades. The network currently includes 570 busi-ness support organisations in the EU and beyond. So it is well placed to help companies find suppliers, distributors, trustworthy export partners and ways to find and sell technologies.

The main objective of the cooperation between partners of the two projects BalticSupply (BS) and North Sea Supply Connect (NSSC) and the project Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) is to use synergies:

• bring together products, services, technologies and research ideas of the branches energy, food industry and maritime technology from the Baltic Sea Region;

• arrange transnational linkages to support business coop-eration.

For this purpose it is intended to establish – in each region of the projects – cooperation between a BalticSupply partner and the corresponding regional EEN partner. These partners should commit themselves to the following tasks:

• The BS-partners will be in close contact to companies and institutions of the respective industries, offer existing cooperation profiles to their clients and collect offers and/or requirements for international cooperation (cooperation profiles) from their clients.

• The EEN-partners will provide the BS-partners with European wide cooperation offers within the respective in-dustries and will enter international partner search profiles into the databases of the Enterprise Europe Network.

• Both partners will inform each other about Expressions of Interests made by regional clients and about Expressions of Interest received by external clients. And both partners will support each other in fulfilling necessary project-specific formal procedures like e.g. the documentation of successful partnership.

This cooperation has already started in Bremen, Germany (lo-cation of the Baltic Supply Lead Partner) and will be extended to the other participating regions in the near future.

For more information, please contact WfB Bremen, [email protected]

Further reading on EEN on www.ec.europe.eu/enterprise-europe-network

RD

AB

DO Business Development Organizations

Coaching Matchmaking Promotion

Business Development Platform

Clu

ster OEMs / SMEs

Maritime Energy Health & Food

Organization Internet Portal

Innovation Tendering Company Register

Service Delivery

Service Dissemination

others


CARGOTO - a Swedish cooperation project across the Baltic SeaOne of the goals of BalticSupply is to facilitate trade across the borders and to increase networking. The Swedish project CARGOTO has the same objective as it supports transport routes with short lead times and effective logistics that are essential for the de-velopment of trade and networking. CARGOTO is a collaboration project set up to extend the freight transport options for companies in Sweden and in the Baltic countries. Within two years a new and ef-ficient transport route from Oskarshamn in Sweden to Ventspils port in Latvia with further connections eastward will be established.

SSPA Sweden, partner in BalticSupply, has recently per-formed a study and analysis of competitive factors for the goods transport corridor with unitized cargo between Oskar-shamn and Ventspils including hinterland transportation. Cus-tomer demands, competing transport alternatives, frequency, service areas, reliability and value added activities have been investigated. BalticSupply Partners in the Baltic countries have also contributed to the study. SMEs will gain with respect to supply chain integration and opening of new markets with the goods transport corridor across the Baltic Sea in place.

This trade could in the future be supported and stimulated by the use of the Business Development Portal services. The companies involved in the transport route, to date mainly on the Swedish side, but with good possibilities of expansion also to Latvia and other Baltic countries, will benefit from the use of a BDP for networking and exchange of experiences. This enhances the possibilities to expand and develop trade and economic growth.

For more information, please contact SSPA Sweden AB, [email protected].

Further reading: www.cargoto.se/en

Ten countries represented at first Politi-cal Advisory Group in BrusselsThe first Political Advisory Group (PAG) meeting, hosted at the South Denmark European office in Brussels, was very well attended by the project part-nership and EU services. There was a lively debate with substantial exchange of experience, mutual in-vitations to initiatives and meetings later in the year 2011. The scene was set for a discussion of the fu-ture course of the Business Development Platform (BDP) for the Baltic Supply and the North Sea Supply Connect projects.

It was pointed out that for the first time, two projects across two EU-funded program regions are as closely connected as in this case. In this context reference was made to the “Han-seatic League” which for centuries provided prosperity in the Baltic and North Sea area. Today these two projects are focus-sing on three economic clusters that form the economic basis for many regions in Europe; at the same time the cooperation inspired by hanseatic traditions is continued within the context of EU-Interreg funding.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises are the focus and future

Eva Kjer Hansen, Member of the Danish Parliament under-lined that partners should “concentrate on what they are good at.” She called for reduced bureaucracy to make the market mechanisms more efficient and at the same time emphasized the need for contact and reliability in order to build trust be-tween actors.

Rob Engelsman, Chair of the meeting from Northern Nether-lands, pointed out that 95 % of Northern Netherlands compa-nies are SMEs. Local and regional programmes have been set up to facilitate innovation and business development. Cluster policy needs the research edge and hence we work with the tri-ple helix of company’s, government and research institutions. Energy, Water technology, Sensor technology, Agribusiness and healthy ageing are the five clusters the Northern Neth-erlands are concentrating on. Therefore they support the pro-posal of Business Development Platform and will offer their own existing services to it.

Rob Engelsman motivated the advisory board to support and promote these projects and the many practices that are used in the regions.

Jean de Bethune, Chair of Province Council West Flanders-Belgium, stressed that SMEs need assistance. Their often lim-ited capacity must be taken into account; ‘we must be realistic on what SMEs can achieve’ was the message.


Raul Allikivi, Ministry of Economic Affairs Estonia, pointed out the similarities between the Europe2020 and the aims of the BS/NSSC projects. The average founding time of a company is very telling – durability is the key and of course to reduce bureaucracy.

Thomas Palmgren, Member of the EESC for Finland, talked about FINEnterprise, the Finland state-financed portal ensur-ing effective use of business development resources in Finland by pooling action, facilitating access to public procurement and recognising innovation potential. EU programs require large capacities, which is often not apt for SMEs. He finished by stressing that quality should be the primary priority, not price.

Projects’ contribution to the Small Business Act

Simeon Chenev, DG ENTERPRISE, presented the status of the Small Business Act (SBA) three years after its installation in 2008. The principle “think small first” in policy-making has resulted in a reduction of company set-up time form 12 to 7 days. 100.000 SMEs have benefited from CIP financial instruments - each loan generating an average of 1.2 jobs. The impact assessment will be continued and further activi-ties are the opening of SME centres in India and China.

Sławomir Halbryt, Mem-ber of several Manage-ment Associations in Po-land, informed that the 10 principles of the SBA have been implemented in the Pomeranian region and that the Pomeranian en-ergy platform was founded in alignment with the SBA concept.

Dirk Kühling, Ministry of Economic Affairs of Bremen Germany and co-chairing the meeting, presented how Bremen has been implementing the “Think Small First” principle with a clear clus-ter promotion focus and by fostering innovative capacities of companies.

Anders Carlberg, Maritime Affairs Region Västra Götaland Sweden, brought the message that maritime and energy clus-ters are new fields for applying the SBA. The Swedish Marine Technology Forum, despite not having a shipyard for decades, promotes supplying companies. He invited partners to cooper-ate by reducing dependency on traditional ship energy (bunker fuel) and consider concrete steps in LNG and for the Clean Shipping Index.

Round off and future collaborations

Skaidrite Rancane-Slavinska, Entrepreneurship Competitive-ness Department Latvia, pointed out how important particu-larly the food and the energy sectors are to Latvia. She invited the partners to RigaFoodTrade Fair in September 2011, which was welcomed by the Danish cluster coordinator for the food sector.

Tom Buchanan, Convenor of the Council of the City of Edin-burgh Scotland, encouraged the food sector to tell the story: where the food is coming from and thus create value for the entire food chain.

Carsten Westerholt, Interreg Secretariat North Sea Region, rounded the discussion off, by pointing out that a high-ranking political meeting like this plays a special role within a project and contributes to European policy. He stressed: “In Norway

they teach children how to start a company and how to man-age it. The joint story of BS and NSSC is interesting as a prototype for the cooperation of various European pro-grammes!”

Regular meetings foreseen

The PAG-members want to meet again regularly – at the latest in June 2012. However in the meantime, joint activities and ad-hoc meetings could take place at one of the events listed here in this Newsletter.

High attention for the two projects at Brussels recep-tion

The reception at the Bremen Brussels Office held in honour of the first Political Advisory Groumeeting on March 15th was a great success with around eighty participants. Representatives of all 29 partner organisa-tions of the eleven involved countries, including business

organisations, Chambers of Commerce, knowledge institu-tions and public bodies met with established Brussels repre-sentatives of the key innovative industries: Maritime, Wind En-ergy and Food and Health.

Helga Trüpel (picture below), MEP from Bremen, congratu-lated the Members of the Political Advisory Group on their constitutional meeting and underlined the importance of trans-national hands-on actions to support the EU strategies for the macro-regions Baltic and North Sea.


Future events: Baltic Supply project• Hanse-Tagung 2011 Energy efficiency and climate protection around the Mare Balticum

• Date: 11th-13th May 2011 in Hamburg, Germany

• Read more: www.hanse-parlament.eu

• Waste to Energy+recycling 2011 International Exhibition and Conference for Energy and Materials from Waste and Bio-mass

• Date: 18th-19th May 2011 in Bremen, Germany

• Read more: www.wte-expo.com

• Windforce 11 - Direction Offshore International Conference for offshore wind energy

• Date: 7th-9th June 2011 in Bremerhaven, Germany

• Read more: www.windenergie-agentur.de/english/

• RigaFood Riga Food is the biggest food industry exhibition in the Baltic countries, the exhibition shows the development of industry in general, highlights novelties and gives an opportunity to meet food industry enterprises

• Date: 7th- 10th September 2011, Riga, Latvia

• Read more: www.bt1.lv/bt1/rigafood/?link=10000000

• 9th German Foreign Trade Congress 2011/ 9. Deutscher Außenwirtschaftstag 2011 Congress, Trade exhibition and cooperation exchange. Topics: Current challenges in European trade policy, Financing/insurance; Logistics, Export control; Foreign trade promotion

• Date: 13th September 2011 in Bremen, Germany

• Read more: www.aussenwirtschaftstag.de

• European Integration and Baltic Sea Region Conference on Diversity and Perspectives hosted by Univeristy of Latvia, Centre for European and Transition Studies

• Date: 26th-27th September in Riga, Latvia

• Read more: http://cbs.ut.ee/index.php/home/activities/details/58.html

• Baltic Development Forum Summit 2011 Bridge European and Regional integration; Develop regional partnerships between EU, Russian and Eastern Partners; Bring public and private interests together; Assess and update a common strategy for the future

• Date: 24th-26th October 2011 in Gdansk, Poland

• Read more: www.bdforum.org/show/english/news/bdf_summit_2011.aspx

Part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund)

Documents

Baltic Supply Newsletter 1 - April, 2011