“The benefits of the Digital Agenda for SMEs: towards simplification, enhanced cross-border trade and diversified access to finance” 6 October 2011

“The benefits of the Digital Agenda for SMEs: towards simplification, enhanced cross-border trade

and diversified access to finance”

6 October 2011

Key note address

Constantijn van Oranje, Member of the cabinet of Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-President and Commissioner in

charge of the Digital Agenda

Roundtable

The digital agenda: a tool to remove administrative, cross-border trade, and access to finance barriers

Case studies- the state of play, benefits/failures -moderated by Luc Hendrickx, Director Enterprise Policy and

External Relations, UEAPME

•Removing administrative barriers through cloud computing- Mark Lange, Senior Policy Counsel, Microsoft •Facilitating cross-border trade through e-commerce - Stefan Krawczyk, Senior Director and Counsel Government Relations Europe, ebay EU Liaison office•Interconnection of business registers , Yves Gonner, Director Registre de Commerce et des Societes du Luxembourg •Empowering SMEs to better access to finance - the example of online peer to peer lending - Jean-Christophe Capelli, CEO Friendsclear•Software as a service: supporting compliance for EU SMEs, Caterina Berbenni-Rehm, CEO of PROMIS@service

mailto:PROMIS@service

CASE STUDY:

REMOVING ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIERS THROUGH CLOUD COMPUTING

The benefits of the Digital Agenda for SMEs

Mark LangeSenior Policy CounselMicrosoft Europe6 October 2011

Case study:

• Small business based in Ireland• Founded 2006, under 30 employees• Saw greater opportunity to use technology to

automate information exchange for international trade transactions

• Uses cloud computing to grow quickly, achieve global scale

Problem

“The average international transaction involves 27 to 30 different parties, 40 documents, 200 data elements (30 of which are repeated at least 30 times) and the re-keying of 60-70% of data at least once.”

- UN Conference on Trade and Development

Opportunity

• Cut red tape, reduce costs, increase productivity– Use online service for paperfree transactions

• New requirements– Customs data must be exchanged before shipment– Demanding efficiency as well as security

• Filling a need felt acutely by SME importers and exporters

EU involvement

• As part of FP6-funded eTen initiative, EC sought to prove feasibility of paperfree trade

• Tradefacilitate participated in Clearview project – mid term review advised that final audit must

demonstrate scalability to many thousands of importers/exporters, many thousands of transactions

Delivering the Service: Limits

• Tradefacilitate started with service running on its own servers/IT infrastructure– Required capital investment and inhouse staff, difficult

to achieve required levels of security and reliability

• Started with alcohol trade within EU – how to expand to serve any kind of trade globally?

• Tradefacilitate’s expertise: trade transactions, not data centre management

Delivering the Service: Without limits• In 2009 Tradefacilitate moved to commercial deployment

on a public cloud platform– Using Windows Azure as platform

• Advantages:– Scale: Tradefacilitate can expand its computing resources to

meet any level of demand– Pay per use: Major upfront capital expense barrier becomes

routine operational expense– Agility: company personnel focus on areas of their expertise to

improve service– Security and reliability: well beyond small company’s ability to

deliver on its own

Tradefacilitate today

• A leading global e-trade service• Offices in EU ,New York, Malayasia, Dalian

China , Australia, Ethiopia• Continues to focus on needs of SME

importers/exporters, but also services large multinational corporations in compliant paperfree cross border trade – in line with EU eCustoms (2011 -2013) and EU 2020 goals of

cutting red tape

13The benefits of the Digital Agenda for SMEs

European Parliament, Bruxelles, October 6, 2011

14

Interconnection of business registers

-

Yves GonnerDirecteur

-

Trade and Companies Register Luxembourg

15

Introduction to Business Registers

Business Registers Commercial and companies registers organized centrally or

decentralized Registering commercial companies, sole traders or other legal

entities like not for profit associations or foundations Acting nationally adressing principally national customers

Missions

Main missions Recipient of information and documents filed in pursuance of

European and National legislation Information provider offering services to businesses and

professionals Substantial improvements and IT investments in recent years

Electronic filing of data and documents Electronic access to information

Modern service providers that have become more ‘customer orientated’

16

Partners for SMEs

Reliable partners and source of official information for SMEs Helping you know better your business partner

Company information Legal information : Name, official address, purpose,

capital, shareholders, company officials, signature holders and signature rights, etc

Documents : Articles of Association, Incorporation deeds, etc.

Financial information : Balance sheets and accounting documents

Company status Court decisions Respect of filing obligations

Legal security in business transactions

17

Cross border perspective

Form a cross border perspective, registers are confronted with two different challenges :

Foreign customers ask for national register information in order to secure and facilitate cross border trade and transactions

European legislation requires registers to communicate with each others

Cross border mergers, transfer of seats (SE, EEIG) It is agreed that a strengthened collaboration among

Registers would be beneficial to European businesses Ex : Exchange of information on the relationship Parent

company / foreign branches

18

Difficulties for European businesses

Problems in accessing national register information Electronic portals are not always easy to access (customer

identification, payments problems, language problems, etc,) Official information (company extract) is mostly provided in national

languages Difficulties in understanding the legal value of documents and

information provided by the different registers as national legislations differ

19

Collaboration between BR

Necessity to interconnect Business Registers has been recognized since many years by the BR community

Significant advantages for European businesses to benefit from a standardized set of official company information (company profiles, company officials etc.) available on a multilingual basis

Voluntary collaboration among registers in the European Business Register (EBR) network since 1998

Conclusion is that a communication system among registers based on a voluntary and informal basis is at present not working at full satisfaction

20

Merits of the collaboration

Significant efforts and investments have been done by EBR members in order to implement an IT platform that is now fit to support interregistry communication

Running IT platform enabling international access to BR information through BR national portals

Mulitingual, offering payment facilities Providing basic standardized information delivered by BR Documents (Annual Accounts, Articles of Association,…) are

available Ongoing contacts are under way in order to incite membership of

registries that are not yet members of the network

21

Limitations of voluntary collaboration among BRs

Present legal status of the network is not satisfactory Insufficient legal framework binding BR Reluctance of member registers

to provide sufficient funding for investments to prioritize on cross border matters to deliver to the EBR network all of the information and

documents they deliver through their national portals Reluctance of different juridictions to join the network

22

Future of BR interconnection

Clarify legal status of the network Clarify the legal framework of the interconnection of BR Provide guidelines or recommendations concerning the essential aspects

of the communication among registers Definition of a common set of agreed principles Ensure financial stability of the network High expectations concerning the directive proposal as regards the

interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers

23

Thank you for your attention

24

25

Empowering SMEs to better access to finance :the example of online peer-to-peer finance

“Benefits of the Digital Agenda for SMEs”ACCA and UEAPMEEuropean Parliament 6 October 2011

Jean-Christophe Capelli, CEO, FriendsClear.com

A supportive environment for a new system of financing businesses : online peer-to-peer finance

Banking system in crisis : risk-aversion among “plain old’” providers of finance

A general resurgence of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship

Low interest rates offered by saving accounts + lack of attractive financial products for personal investors

Rise of “social” or “peer to peer” (p2p) finance, where individuals rather than financial institutions lend to or invest in small businesses

26

27

Equity investment platforms(P2PVenture)

28

Crowdcube (UK)

29

Wiseed (France)

Small Business loans platforms (P2PLending)

30

31

Lending Club (US)

Funding Circle (UK)

32

LENDERinvestment amount :-Min : 100 euros per project-Max : 30.000 euros/year

FriendsClear (France)

ENTREPRENEUR - BORROWERLoan amount-Min : 3.000 euros-Max : 25.000 eurosLoan duration-3 years (monthly payments)

34

FriendsClear (France)

Entrepreneur profile« Be Bio »

Experience from the field : what is working ?

Benefits traditionally associated with online disintermediation

Banking costs are cut Due diligence are performed by a collaborative work between

investors Social networks allow to leverage an unprecedented volume

and depth of information on entrepreneurs and their projects

No middleman : better return for investors / cheaper access to finance for entrepreneurs

Loans default rates kept low (peer pressure)

36

Experience from the field : what needs to be improved ?

Lack of standardisation (believe it or not) among european countries Banking regulations are VERY different among

europeans countries Consumer regulations are different (as far as banking

services are concerned) The importance of financial transparency in an online

world.

Need for better (positive) credit scoring / rating in some european countries (both for entrepreneurs themselves and SMEs)

Hi-quality financial reports and forecasts are required (even for SME’s)

37

38

Jean-Christophe CapelliCEOFriendsClear

[email protected] Web : http://www.friendsclear.com

Q&A

http://www.friendsclear.com/

www.promis.euEU Parliament, SME Week, Brussels 06.10.2011

®

A Single Entry Point forIntegrated Compliance and Continuous Improvement

For European SMEs

Across Health&Safety, Environment, Quality, ICT Security & more

Caterina Berbenni-Rehm, CEO

PROMIS@Service Sarl

21 Rue de Nassau, L- 2213 Luxembourg

Email: [email protected]

Brands, methodology/ies and content are copyrighted and protected by [email protected]


®

PROMIS@Service S.a.r.l., incorporated in May 2008 in Luxemburg

with the goal to rollout the result of two EC funded projects in Europe.

Expertise in: Knowledge intensive services- eBusiness; eLearning and eTraining; Knowledge and Technology Transfer Deployment/marketing of ICT tools

About us


®What is PROMIS®

An integrated Compliance and Knowledge Management Business Enabler solution offering tools and services to:

Structure and share Knowledge Collaborate and Communicate onlineSupport regulatory complianceManage and improve processes and proceduresKeep transparency and order in the organisation thanks to an adequate documentation and integrated electronic handbook conforming with ISO 9000, ISO14000 and OHSAS requirements


®Our Approach

Human-centred technology and methodologies (TECH)

Clear definition between free of charge and paid-for content (KNOWL)

Respect of individual tacit knowledge and recognition of IPRs (LEGIS)

Clear and well defined rules, duties and rights (Win-win COOP)

Collaborative Community based approach (HUMANS).

Simplify Complexity and Make Simplicity Effective !


®

The Base

myPROMIS: Workspace for SMEs

myKnowledge: Workspace to structure knowledge

Three tool Modules

myCommunication: Online communication SME & Consultant myQualification: Database for consultants qualification

myQuestionnaire: To develop initial & other reviews

The Product

Software as a ServiceWeb 2.0 Technology


®


®Characteristics

Multinational, Multilingual and Multi-Client enabled Online interactive Collaboration between SMEs, Consultants and

interested Parties (e.g. suppliers, public authorities, banks) Structuring and sharing organisation‘s internal and institutional Knowledge Protecting Intellectual Property Rights Visualisation of Inter-relationships of all Processes in the Organisation Supporting de-facto Certification and Compliance Europe-wide Qualification for the PROMIS Consultants (via CEN-WS41)


®

For SMEs:

1. Time and cost savings with proven Return on Investment

2. Online interactive Communication, and Knowledge sharing in the organisation and outside

3. Evidence-based compliance to legal requirements, Safety improvements and preparation for Certification

4. Transparency and efficiency throughout the organisation

For Institutions:

Opportunity to disseminate and transfer content and knowledge in the SME organisation up to task level.

Benefits


®

Machine translation, Cross-text retrieval, Terminology Translation in additional 6 languages: FR, ES, PT, RO, GR, HU

How to Shorten Time-to-market:


®

PROMIS® is a generic framework to build and offer interactive services answering, partially or in full, the requirements of Digital Agenda 2020:

(i)sector- and theme-oriented turn-key solutions for micro SMEs, with

(ii)high level of trust and confidence based on security, high quality, trusted community building,

(iii)offering a balanced regulatory framework with clear rights regimes, like the PROMIS® Knowledge repository pyramid, and

(iv)a innovative Business Model, offering adequate protection and remuneration for rights holders.

Digital Agenda & PROMIS®


®

2010 - DG Enterprise selected PROMIS as one of the 50 best eBusiness cases in Europe. Translation of testimonial in 21 languages.2011 – UEAPME - Contractual Partnership to support the dissemination and rollout

of PROMIS in Europe

Thank you for your attention !

Caterina Berbenni-Rehm, Dr.

eMail: [email protected]

Q&As

Sometimes a cloud is just a cloud

Key note speech Daniel Calleja-Crespo, SME envoy, Deputy Director General,

DG ENTR

Panel debate: What policy options at EU, national or local level to optimise the use of the Digital Agenda for SMEs- moderated by Robin Jarvis, Head of Small Business Affairs at ACCA and a member of the European Banking Authority (EBA) Banking Stakeholders'

Group

•Magdalena Ochej- Łokuciejewska, Head of Competitiveness Unit at the Ministry of Economy of Poland, Chair of the Internal Market Working Party •Harrie Temmink, Deputy head of unit online services, DG MARKT •Matthias Schmidt-Gerdts , policy officer Company Law and corporate governance, DG MARKT •Franck Boissiere, Team coordinator e-businesses and Digital Single Market, DG INFSO

Q&As

Concluding remarks Andrea Benassi, Secretary General of UEAPME

Conclusions by the Chair Dr Paul Rübig, MEP

Followed by Sandwich lunch