CONTEXT CHALLENGES FACED BY THE FOOTWEAR SECTOR Footwear SMEs are an essential part for the attainment of a sustainable and durable European economic growth. The footwear sector makes a significant contribution to EU economy by providing 260.000 jobs, in close to 22.000 enterprises, mainly small sized, with a turnover of €27 billion. However, Europe is responsible for only 13% of global exports and it only exports about 15% of its production outside EU. At the same time, the sector faces significant challenges as it was hit hard by the financial crisis and has not yet recovered. Since 2006 the number of companies dropped down notably, 35.000 job were lost and the turnover decreased accordingly. Also, imports, coupled with additional pressures form low wage economies, creates additional pressure. SOLUTION: Using the Internet as a sales channel to increase revenues from cross-border sales. OBJECTIVES BOOST4Shoes will develop the European Footwear Sector through development of the Online Sales Manager profile, a professional capable of devising e-Commerce strategies for increasing revenues from cross-border sales through utilisation of the Internet as a sales channel. The project targets SMEs from the footwear industry as it is a dynamic sector retaining a high number of jobs and needs to be supported and boosted. The profile and consequent competences in Europe are still underestimated, while the present e-Commerce environment can facilitate substantial growth. PARTICIPANTS The partnership comprises 7 partners from 7 countries. A digital strategy agency with digital marketing/e-Commerce expertise, an educational technology & knowledge dissemination company, 3 VET organisations addressing the footwear sector, a higher education institute researching in footwear and a software development company and VET training centre ACTIVITIES The partnership will design, develop, test, implement and disseminate an innovative training program facilitated by two tools, the Online Sales Strategy Genie and the Skills Retention Service (LME). The development of the training program will be based on the adoption of a user-centred approach. The assessment of the training program will include extended cycles of training activities and work place centred work including skills retention. Trainers will continuously give feedback to the project team about their experiences gained at the workplace. This not only will increase the motivation of the trainers, and give weight to their practical experiences, but will also provide the necessary cross-links between theory and practice. Upon suggestions of the trainers, the project team will perform the necessary adjustments to the training approach. METHODOLOGY BOOST4Shoes will deliver a complete training program on cross-border e-Commerce for footwear sector SMEs. The project methodology can be summarized as follows: - Make a comparative analysis from a critical viewpoint of the current state of play in e-Commerce practices of footwear sector in the partner countries (analysed at proposal level initially) and identify the winning practices from footwear sector SMEs from countries topping the e-Commerce charts in terms of cross-border sales - Validate the needs of footwear SMEs from the partner countries in relation to knowledge and skills for implementing the winning practices and identify and describe the learning outcomes for the Online Sales Manager - Elaborate a training methodology and a set of e-Commerce strategies for the footwear SMEs - Devise the list of actions to be implemented by the SMEs for materialising each of the strategies - Design and develop the Online Sales Manager (OSM) course to support the implementation of the actions - Localise the strategies, actions and content - Implement the ECVET tools - Design the Online Sales Strategy Genie to facilitate the personalisation of the e-Commerce strategies at individual SME level and deliver the actions for materialising each strategy - Deploy, set-up and configure a Learning Motivation Environment offering a skills retention service - Re-purpose and integrate the content as interactive multimedia resources for skills retention. - Train a number of appointed instructors/trainers to the methodology, course and delivery tools. - Organise pilots. - Process results. RESULTS - Online Sales Manager Training Content - ECVET supporting tools - Online Sales Strategy Genie - Skills Retention Service - BOOST4Shoes Academy LONG TERM BENEFITS - Improvement of VET providers offer for e-Commerce in footwear - Improvement of companies’ sales performances increasing their e-Commerce cross-border capabilities - Improvement of companies’ capacity to respond to new consumers trends - Increase in EU companies competitiveness in world markets and answering to competitive threats coming from low-costs countries producers - Stimulating high qualified profiles and helping the EU achieve a higher rate of active population in ICT economy
CONTEXT As the footwear sector rapidly grows into an integral part of the European economic growth,providing more than 260.000 job opportunities,the need of Europe for global exports becomes even more decisive for the European enterprises.This case is driven by the fact that Europe is culpable only for 13% of global exports,exporting around 15% of its production outside EU.Concurrently, the European financial crisis still has a negative impact on the sector with a notable number of businesses dropping down and their turnover decreasing significantly due to lack of adequate skills to sustain their operations within a competitive global market. SOLUTION The BOOST4Shoes project developed an open,all-inclusive training program for boosting skills towards a more efficient use of the Internet as a sales channel to enhance cross border business activity resulting in higher competitiveness,less business failures and thus increased revenues to ultimately benefit the EU economy.After the completion of the training, all participants in BOOST4Shoes were able to retain and improve their knowledge and skills,acquire new high-quality competences and continue their professional development by implementing the recommended strategies. PARTICIPANTS The project envisaged the following target groups: Directly: -EU Footwear SMEs -Sales managers and professionals dealing with the footwear sector Indirectly: -VET training organizations,trainers already providing entrepreneurship,eCommerce,ICT related training or looking to introduce such a training offering,business coaches -SME chambers,Business Innovation Centers,entrepreneurship associations,public officials responsible for entrepreneurship/growth/VET. OBJECTIVE The purpose of the project was to help entrepreneurs of the footwear sector improve their skills and knowledge in e-Commerce strategies supported by the smart use of ICT/eBusiness for generating revenues through cross-border sales. PARTNERS The partnership comprised the following organizations: -CIVIC (UK):a digital strategy agency with e-Commerce expertise -COIN (Cyprus):an educational technology & knowledge dissemination company -CRE.THI.DEV (Greece):an NGO focused on action plans for local communities and SMEs -CTCP (Portugal):a VET centre supporting all companies of footwear cluster -ISC (Germany):a research centre supporting the footwear industry -TUIASI (Romania):a higher education institute researching in footwear -DANMAR (Poland):a software development company and VET training centre ACTIVITIES The project delivered a complete training program on cross-border e-Commerce for footwear sector SMEs,following a concrete methodology: -The first step was a comparative analysis of the current state of play between e-Commerce practices implemented by SMEs in partner countries and winning practices in countries outside the partnership.The aim was to identify the actual needs of the target group in order to form a training program tailored to them. -The next step was the validation of the needs by representatives of the target group in order to address and describe the learning outcomes forming the Online Sales Manager profile. -The training methodology and set of e-Commerce strategies were based on the validated needs. -To materialize the recommended strategies and support their implementation in real life,the partnership then developed the Online Sales Manager (OSM) modular course comprising hands-on actions linked to ECVET system with supporting tools.The course is implemented within the Online Sales Strategy Genie,a virtual environment that promotes personalized learning pathways at individual SME level and delivers the most important actions based on the user profile. -Together with the OSM,a personalized tool delivering a re-modeled course towards skills retention after the implementation of the actions was developed in a dedicated virtual space serving as a Learning Motivation Environment (LME) in order to complement the training program towards lifelong learning. 15 trainers were trained upon the methodology and results in order to deliver the course in a blended-learning environment.All results were tested and evaluated during a piloting period before the final release. RESULTS The main results of the project are: -OSM Training Content -ECVET supporting tools -Online Sales Strategy Genie -Skills Retention Service -BOOST4Shoes Academy LONG TERM BENEFITS Supported by the BOOST4Shoes Academy,a virtual space developed for the sustainability of the training program,SMEs are able to implement all recommended strategies ensuring sound e-Commerce practices,improving sales’ performance through enhanced cross-border capabilities and capacity to respond to new trends and consumers’ needs,increasing EU’s SMEs competitiveness within a global market. ACRONYMS -TPM: Transnational Project Meeting -LTTA: Learning Teaching & Training Activity -ME: Multiplier Event -IO: Intellectual Output -PQP: Project Quality Plan