StartCompEnt4° partners meetingLondon, 4-5 September 2008

Italy: activities update, colloquium II, policies recommendations

StartCompEnt

Summary

Activities update Colloquium II: main findings Book 2: policies recommendations

Ifoter activities updateIfoter activities update National and regional policies study (WP 2): enclosed in national report Interviews with regional experts and cluster managers (WP2):

9 experts interviewed (between 13/2 and 19/3) Results analysis used for Colloquium 1 and enclosed in the national report

Regional start-ups survey (WP3): Both online survey and direct interviews Two samples: 30 start-ups in local tourisme and retail sectors; 30 start-ups hosted

by some regional incubators Main findings of the survey presented at Colloquium 1 Results enclosed in the national report

Colloquium 1 (WP4): Held in Livorno on April, 21 8 entrepreneurs from retail, hotels and restaurants sector

Colloquium 2 (WP5): Held in Livorno on June, 6 2 regional experts and 3 trainers of entrepreneurs

Newsletter II: “Female entrepreneurship in Europe” (WP 9.5) Released at the end of June

Colloquium 2: organisation Date: 04/06/2008 Time: from 9,00 to 12,30 Location: Confcommercio Headquarter - Livorno Contributors:

5 Trainers of entrepreneurs and regional experts Moderation: Claudio Salvucci (Simurg Ricerche), Cecilia Benassi

(IFOTER) Tools: slides, StartCompEnt info-pack, notebook, camera, data

collection grid Methodology: Danish case study

+ tool for weighting the factors (the grid) Visualised discussion by building working groups on the topics and results/reports of the pilot studies, interviews, survey and colloquy 1

Colloquium 2: methodology Following the guidelines from SFS and from Danish partners we present

them findings from startcompent researches, particularly about Danish experience.

We ask them first of all to identify and write the key factors that influence the quality and the success of entrepreneurs’ training activities, trying to classify this factors in three categories: 1) personal attitudes of the teacher, 2) competences and capacity of the teacher, 3) training organisation.

They discussed the factors in relation with their own experience and wrote a list for each categories.

We collect the participants’s proposals trying to classify them by the way of a data collection grid. Then we printed the grid and each participant scored the proposed factors.

This grid helped us to weight the factors in a standardized way, ranking them accordingly with average evaluations of the participants. Small corrections are made after the first synthesis presented to entrepreneurs.

Next slides shows the results for each categories and the final ranking of factors.

Colloquium 2: results

How would you describe the characteristics of the successful entrepreneurs’ trainers?

Teacher quality

0,0

5,4

8,4

9,4

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Sex

Age

Level of education

Motivation to teach

Mean weight (1=Not important…10=Very important)

Know-how and capacity of teacher

8,4

8,8

8,8

8,8

8,8

8,8

9,0

9,2

9,4

9,6

9,6

7,5 8 8,5 9 9,5 10

Being exciting

Technical and professional skills

Experience entrepreneurial

Professionals adjournament

Knowledge of context

Capture the attention

Knowledge of the economic and social situation

Ability to teach

Understand the needs of entrepreneurs

Work experience

Capacity communicative

Mean weight (1=Not important…10=Very important)

Colloquium 2: results

Which personal skills are important for trainers of entrepreneurs?

Colloquium 2: results

How can training of entrepreneurs should be organised?

Features of the training

6,6

8,2

8,6

8,8

9,0

9,2

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Prevalence oftheoretical aspects

Short courses

Prevalence of practicalaspects

Personalization ofcontent

Deepening of the topics

Coordination with thesupport services

Mean weight (1=Not important…10=Very important)

Negative Aspects

6,6

6,8

7,0

7,0

7,2

7,4

7,6

7,8

7,8

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Teachers without professional experience

Poor technical competence

Teachers without knowledge of sectoral issues

Mandatory training

Teachers without knowledge of the local context

Poor educational and communicative ability

Teachers without business experience

Courses too long

Topics too general

Mean weight (1=Not important…10=Very important)

Colloquium 2: results

How can training of entrepreneurs should be organised?

Recommendations: a) general policies National education strategy:

There are a need of education strategy promoting entrepreneurship aptitudes (medium-long time learnings) in all education level.

More focused support policies: To focus on areas with greater potential for growth, such as ICT, biotechnology

and other high-tech and innovation fields; A better choice of business activities to support and monitor ex-post;

Financing: To ease the access to funding from venture capital, encouraging both this and

informal investors; To increase involvement of private bodies (such as venture capitalists or

experienced managers) to provide expert support to those activities with greatest potential for growth;

University involvement: To increase involvement of universities, which are a "natural context" for the

development of new businesses, i.e. by easing the transmission of information between legislators and potential entrepreneurs, or the building of incubators.

Recommendations: b) public services Simplification and rationalisation of procedures:

At legislative level Developping a greater interplay between public bodies for the

enacting of reforms such as the Sportello Unico (single point of contact);

Public services giving support to start-ups should: test entrepreneurs’ aptitude and motivation and filter the start-

ups to be aided and supported; be free and not committed with consultants; develop network of enterprises and entrepreneurs; promote mentorship; develop training modules personalized for different types of

start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Recommendations: c) entrepreneurs training Teachers/trainers should be highly motivated; They should have work experience and deep

understanding of entrepreneurs needs and problems;

Training initiatives should be coordinated with public support services;

Training contents should be personalized, short, flexible, focused on practical aspects.

Comments and criticism are welcome. Thank you.