The BIG project aims to increase the digital, international, business and financial management skills of 80 workers of small companies in Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Greece and Poland functional to define a correct and sustainable planning of digital, international company projection. The project responds to the strongly felt need of small European companies to enter, develop and remain in international business. In fact, according to the DESI Report 2018, in 2017 10% of the EU workforce does not have adequate digital skills and does not use the internet (35% does not even have basic digital skills). It criticizes the situation in IT, SI, EL, PL; slightly higher than the EU average, the ES figure. Only around 10% of the European small business workforce has digital skills to monitor technological solutions and devices such as cross-border e-commerce, cloud services and automation. Against a growing number of EU consumers who habitually use e-commerce (equal to 68%) there is an inadequate implementation of these digital solutions mainly in EU small businesses with IT, PL, GR in the last positions. SI and ES are average. According to the results of a Google-Doxa survey, there is also a close correlation between the use of e-commerce and revenue generation. The percentage of small businesses that have relations with foreign countries (the analysis involved 5,000 European small businesses) - thanks to digital, is four times higher than the percentage of non-digitized companies. As the level of digital maturity grows, the percentage of companies that export also grows, going from 55% of non-digital to 67% of companies advanced from a digital point of view. Digital maturity and exports also have a direct impact on turnover: digitally advanced companies declare that 24% of export turnover is achieved through digital means, a sign of the web's potential as an incremental channel for export. In response to these critical issues the project intends to: • co-elaborate a European, blended training supply which is innovative and in line with the needs of workers and companies to improve their development opportunities in the globalized economy • test the learning path with at least 80 workers from European small businesses involved in the partnership, integrating the following 3 dimensions of learning: - cognitive, with the use of OER developed in the form of video tutorials and additional materials developed/sought by the partnership, contained in the learning environment as well as participation in face-to-face sessions during the e-learning course - operational, with the conduction of check-ups by the learners to guide their small businesses, in the implementation of efficiency procedures in international business development processes by exploiting digital solutions - behavioural with the scripting and recital of sketch-coms to stage relational dynamics typical of digital marketing conversational processes • align a group of partnership trainers, involved in an international mobility to acquire the methodological references of Movie Education and guide learners through action learning activities to create educational sketch-coms The project deals with a theme of transnational relevance with a multi-stakeholder partnership cooperation strategy that involves actors of: a) the Chamber system • Camera Di Commercio delle Marche (IT) – Lead Partner • Camera Di Commercio Italiana di Salonicco (EL) • Polish Chamber of Commerce of Importers, Exporters and Cooperation (PL) b) Training and consultancy • CONFORM - Consulenza Formazione e Management S.C.A.R.L (IT) • FEI (ES) • AKMI Anonymous Educational Organization (EL) • GZS CPU (SI) c) The academic system • Università Politecnica delle Marche (IT) • Poznań University of Economics and Business (PL) d) Business associations ASECOM (ES) e) Local authorities BSC Kranj (SI) The expected impacts of the project can be summarized as follows: • Increased level of professional performance in the management of digital internationalization processes in partnership reference territorial contexts by virtue of the acquisition of an integrated set of target skills based on a systemic vision of a technological, organizational/managerial, commercial, relational and marketing nature • Adoption and implementation of a flexible, interactive and innovative European model of education inspired by the movie education logic, capable of evolving methods, tools, solutions and learning situations, to raise digital, international business management skills levels, through a lifelong learning process.
The project achieved the following objectives: - it has enhanced, for the benefit of female/small business workers, digital, international business management skills, based on a systemic vision of technological, organizational/managerial, commercial, relational and marketing matrix, functional to the definition of a correct and sustainable planning of the international digital projection of companies. - aligned a pool of trainers from the partnership, involved in an international mobility to acquire the methodological references of Movie Education and guide learners through action learning actions in the realization of educational sketch-coms - co-developed a blended European training offer, innovative and adherent to the needs of workers and companies to improve their chances of development in the globalized economy - allowed the learning path to be piloted with a total of 91 workers/employees from the European IPs involved in the partnership, compared to the planned 80, integrating 3 dimensions of learning: cognitive, operational and behavioral.
The project responded to the following critical issues: - 10% of the EU workforce in 2017 did not have adequate digital skills and did not use the internet (35% did not even possess basic digital skills). Only about 10 percent of the EU IP workforce had digital skills to preside over technology solutions and devices such as cross-border e-commerce, cloud services, and automation. - there was a close correlation between e-commerce use and revenue generation. The percentage of small businesses that had foreign relationships (the analysis involved 5,000 European IPs) through digital was four times higher than the percentage of non-digitized businesses. As the level of digital maturity increased, so did the percentage of firms exporting, rising from 55 percent of non-digitally advanced firms to 67 percent of digitally advanced firms. In response to these critical issues, the partners enhanced, for the benefit of 91 small business workers from Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Greece and Poland, digital, international business management skills that are instrumental in defining proper and sustainable planning for companies' international digital projection.