Innovation Café – a tool to foster relationships between SMEs www.dekut.hu Innovation Café – a tool to foster relationships between SMEs Ziggy Kovacs innovation specialist Regions for Economic Change Conference March 7, 2007 Brussels
Hungarian tale versus North American tale www.dekut.hu 2
What is the problem? The level of co-operation between SMEs is extremely low SMEs deal with day-to-day issues only The result: SMEs are losing ground in the battle against large (multinational) corporations www.dekut.hu 3
Where can SMEs turn? To increase the level of co-operation – Networking To aquire help in their operations – Business and Trade Associations Too broad spectrum (geographically, industry wise, number of issues) Have their own agendas Organized top-down www.dekut.hu 4
How to make it better? Innovation Café = Business networking based on the World Café principle Introducing members Topic presentation Group discussions Full group conversation www.dekut.hu 5
Results Already visible 60 representatives of 45 IT SMEs attended Knowledge sharing Something has started Acting in unison towards other organizations Formation of actual partnerships The creation of an association www.dekut.hu 6
Surrounding elements Company database Online forums Knowledge center on our website www.dekut.hu 7
Conclusions Advantages A great tool to engage people in authentic conversation Can be tailor made easily for any situation Builds from the bottom-up Limitations Geographical www.dekut.hu 8
Thank you for your attention ziggy.kovacs@dekut.hu www.dekut.hu 9