An important element of business launch is a business model, which particularly in the modern times of fast paced technological, economic, market and social changes is a prerequisite for the success of an enterprise. Unfortunately, not many entrepreneurs-to-be realise the power of business models and seem not to pay enough attention to this stage of company creation. It is estimated that the percentage of people who wish to be self-employed is still significantly lower in Europe than in the US and China (European Commission, 2013), and only 50% of European start-ups survive the first five years (EIM Business and Policy Research, 2011). A common reason for that, apart from insufficient funding and support, is the lack of a well-designed business model, or sticking to the same business model for too long, which makes it impossible to adjust to the changes coming with market globalisation. Therefore, it is important to provide future entrepreneurs with an easy and helpful business models compendium. And that is where the “Developing and understanding business models” (ProBM) project comes in handy. The project is conducted in KA2 Strategic Partnerships: Exchange of good practices, and strives to provide a common ground for the exchange of experience and know-how between different types of organisations involved in adult and entrepreneurship education, and develop a network for transnational cooperation. The project focuses on entrepreneurship education, and thus addresses one of the eight key competences as specified in European Council Recommendation no 2006/962/EC, that is sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. The ProBM project assumes greater focus on encouraging people to become entrepreneurs and making it easier for them to start a business, which is directly related to the provisions of the Entrepreneurship Action Plan of 2013. The objective of the project is to analyze adults’ actual knowledge and skills in the field of business model design and implementation, learn from the experience and good practices from partner countries and design a business models compendium, which being a kind of an informal educational toolkit, will be helpful for future entrepreneurs. The compendium will give the reader examples of business models in practice, but also a useful word bank and a bank of exercises concerning business model design and implementation. The project will likely bring added value to the EU entrepreneurial ecosystem, through the following planned detailed objectives:(1) Creating a transnational project consortium and developing a network for transnational cooperation facilitating the exchange of experience and know-how between different types of organisations involved in adult and entrepreneurship education;(2) Facilitating the exchange of good practices in the field of business model design and implementation;(3) Helping target groups increase sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and increase opportunities for professional development by boosting business model development and implementation knowledge and skills.
An important element of business launch is a business model, which particularly in the modern times of fast paced technological, economic, market and social changes is a pre-requisite for the success of an enterprise. Unfortunately, not many entrepreneurs-to-be realise the power of business models and seem not to pay enough attention to this stage of company creation. It is estimated that the percentage of people who wish to be self-employed is still significantly lower in Europe than in the US and China (European Commission, 2013), and only 50% of European start-ups survive the first five years (EIM Business and Policy Research, 2011). A common reason for that, apart from insufficient funding and support, is the lack of a well-designed business model, or sticking to the same business model for too long, which makes it impossible to adjust to the changes coming with market globalisation. Therefore, it was important to provide future entrepreneurs with an easy and helpful business models compendium. And that is where the 'Understanding and Developing Business Models' (ProBM) project came in handy. The project was conducted in KA2 Strategic Partnerships: Exchange of good practices, and strived to provide a common ground for the exchange of experience and know-how between different types of organisations involved in adult and entrepreneurship education, and develop a network for transnational cooperation. The project focused on entrepreneurship education, and thus addressed one of the eight key competences as specified in European Council Recommendation no 2006/962/EC, that is sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. The ProBM project assumed greater focus on encouraging people to become entrepreneurs and making it easier for them to start a business, which is directly related to the provisions of the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan. The partnership included five organisations: research institute (Poland), and adult training organisations (Italy, Greece, Slovenia and the Czech Republic), which co-operated together in order to fulfil effectively all the project's tasks. The main objective of the 'Understanding and Developing Business Models' (ProBM) project was to analyze adults’ actual knowledge and skills in the field of business model design and implementation, learn from the experience and good practices from partner countries and design a business models compendium, which being a kind of an informal educational toolkit, is helpful for future entrepreneurs. In order to fulfil all the planned objectives, the partners undertook several steps (i.e. case study analysis and survey questionnaire) to develop a compendium as a final result of the project works. The designed compendium is now available in six languages: English, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, Greek and Czech. It can be easily downloaded in PDF format from the project website www.businessmodels.eu. The compendium includes the following chapters: theoretical background of business models aspect; the executive summaries from case studies analysis performed in enterprises and the results of the survey questionnaire with the ordinary citizens (also available on the website as separate files), examples of exercises related to business models aspect, and useful word bank. Moreover, the compendium includes the annex containing the detailed results of the survey with ordinary citizens on the needs of business models in practice (comparative analysis). The annex is available in English (in the case of Greek compendium the annex is also translated into Greek). The project brought added value to the EU entrepreneurial ecosystem, and had the impact on the participants, participating organisations, target groups and relevant stakeholders, through the completion of following planned detailed objectives: (1) Creating a transnational project consortium and developing a network for transnational cooperation facilitating the exchange of experience and know-how between different types of organisations involved in adult and entrepreneurship education (not only partners' organisations, but also the network of scientific institutions and private entrepreneurs); (2) Facilitating the exchange of good practices in the field of business model design and implementation; (3) Helping target groups increase sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and increase opportunities for professional development by boosting business model development and implementation knowledge and skills. The main output can be successfully used by the entrepreneurs starting their adventure in business activity area. Moreover, the compendium can be a useful material in secondary schools when learning and teaching about business activity aspect. Therefore, it seems crucial to submit the proposition of a larger project focused on the design of the complex curriculum related to the business models topic, which could be used by the students in secondary schools and at teriary level.