East Invest Academy 9 14 September 2013

Moldova

For its 2013 edition, the East Invest Academy invites you to a beautiful location of Moldova where you will be able to improve your skills, benchmark with peers and network with business support organisation managers from the six Eastern Partnership countries.

Participation in the Academy is a unique opportunity to do a screening of your own work and to set the new priorities for the future.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
East Invest Academy Learning Format Training Centre Programme Overview Curriculum Alumni Network Application Details 3 4 5 5 6 13 13

Super Academy! Super team! Super participants! Super course leaders! Amazing!!!!

EAST INVEST ACADEMY

EUROCHAMBRES East Invest Academy is an intensive training programme focused on: offering practical tools to review Business Support Organisations (BSO) practices, strategies, services etc. enhancing BSO executives ability to drive organisational growth networking and maximising exchange between executives from different BSOs bringing together the network - to find project partners; to benchmark; to sound out new ideas

Thank you a lot for this opportunity. It was very useful information and networking. A lot of new contacts. Good luck!

The East Invest Academy is a practice-based course designed specifically for executives and directors from business support organisations from the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). Structured around two core courses and a wide range of optional courses which reflect specific interests and needs within the EaP BSO network, the programme addresses the challenges and problems that BSO executives encounter: responding to changing conditions developing strategic partnerships and alliances and exploiting new technologies successfully adapting to increasing competition leading increasingly complex organisations

The Academy is a unique opportunity for BSO executives to attend a programme specifically designed to meet their needs. I would like to mention that all courses were very informative and I obtained very useful information which help me in my future activity. Thanks!

Target participants

This seminar is designed for middle to senior managers of local, regional and national BSOs from the six EaP countries. You will leave the Academy armed with new, practical ideas that YOU can implement in YOUR organisation.

LEARNING FORMAT
Course participation Like all EUROCHAMBRES Academies, this training is designed to allow maximum participation through debate and discussion. Participation and preparation is crucial. Most courses are in groups of 25 people except debates and networking events. Course preparation You will receive detailed personal programmes with your individualised selection. With the detailed description of the course objectives, benefits and key chapters comes a preparation request. Some of the course leaders start to work with you in the month prior to the start of the Academy. Learning material You will receive an individualised participants manual comprising of all the material and references for each course selected and a participants directory including all contact details and short CVs of the participants, course leaders and organisational staff. After the Academy, you will also receive personal access to a dedicated Academy Alumni website.

Course language This East Invest Academy will be conducted in English. Interpretation into Russian is foreseen for the courses, but not for the social events.

The Academy will start on a Monday evening and will end on a Saturday morning. The learning experiences include 22 hours of training, including an open forum and evaluation session; team work and excursion on Thursday afternoon. Thank you. It was a very useful, interesting, interactive Academy. Each course brought added value & A tailor made programme experience & many valuable contacts. Participants will be able to choose from a set of optional courses offering practical tools to manage a BSO, to increase organisational and individual performance; management techniques; financial issues; new services and briefings to reflect on and adapt to the ever changing environment.

TRAINING CENTRE
EUROCHAMBRES in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Moldova has identified an inspirational venue ideal for concentration and networking at the recreation centre located in proximity to Chisinau.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

MONDAY 09/09

TUESDAY 10/09

WEDNESDAY 11/09

THURSDAY 12/09

FRIDAY 13/09

SATURDAY 14/09

9.00 12.30 12.30 14.00 14.00 17.30 Arrival participants & transfer to training centre

Core courses Lunchbuffet Core courses

Optional Courses Lunch-buffet

Optional Courses Lunch-buffet

Optional Courses Lunch-buffet

Departure & transfer to airport

Optional Courses Excursion

Optional Courses

18.00 19:00

Welcome event

17:0019:00 Team building

Free time

Open Forum & Evaluation session Dinner outside the training centre Gala dinner & certificate ceremony

19:30

Dinner at the training centre

Barbecue

Dinner of local specialities

CURRICULUM
The East Invest Academy works with top trainers and speakers. The Faculty will be composed of experienced course leaders from the European partners organisations of the East Alliance and EUROCHAMBRES Academy trainers. In the following pages, you will find the courses on offer for this second edition. The final list of courses will be drawn from this list, depending on which optional courses are selected.

1. CORE COURSES
TUESDAY

MORNING SESSION C.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS RELATIONS WITH THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP COUNTRIES This introduction offers an insight into the European Union, including all the essential ingredients history, power and money and a presentation of the Eastern Partnership. The course will help you understand what makes the European Union, how competences are shared between the European and national levels and between the European institutions. It will furthermore offer an overview on how the EU pursues its relationships with neighbouring countries before describing the Eastern Partnership.

AFTERNOON SESSION C.2 ROAD MAP FOR THE BSO MANAGER Participants will learn the core elements of effective management in BSOs, the need for good planning and communication and how to maintain a focus on members needs while also staying in touch with policy issues and representational activities. We will examine questions such as: What makes a good BSO manager? How do we know if we are performing effectively in this role? What are the key skills BSO managers need to have? What are the key communication strategies which the organisation should pursue?

2. OPTIONAL COURSES
WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY

The optional courses will be offered from Wednesday morning to Friday afternoon. That is, each participant can choose five courses, with each course scheduled to last three hours. In applying for the East Invest Academy, participants are requested to rank their preferred choices. Please make sure to build a balanced programme, based on your personal needs and the needs of your organisation. This may result in a number of optional courses being dropped from the Academy if demand does not justify bringing a course leader for that subject.

I. BSO Development O.1 Improve your lobbying skills! This course will analyse the tactics, pitfalls, and options open to BSOs in representing or lobbying for the business point of view. Having formulated the BSOs policy on a particular issue, how successful is your BSO at marketing that position to the relevant authorities at regional, national and international level?

O.2 Foreign Trade strategies How are BSOs meeting the competitive challenge of todays turbulent business environment? Trade missions, fairs, advisory services, export clubs, import associations, language courses, international data banks, co-operation agreements this course will look at what the most innovative BSOs are doing in promoting trade on behalf of their members and how they decide what activities to engage in.

O.3 European Trade Policy This course will allow the participants to deepen their understanding of how the European Commission, on behalf of the member states, sets EU trade policy. This will be analysed at the multilateral, regional and bilateral levels with the Free Trade, Economic Partnership and/or Association Agreements which are being negotiated under the Global Europe strategy. It will furthermore offer an insight into the key milestones of the DCFTA negotiation process and its implications for businesses from the EaP countries.

O.4 Developing a positive image for your organisation When you mention your BSOs name, does it convey an image of a dynamic business organisation that both champions business and is part of the wider community, or does it bring forth an image of an organisation that has many different offerings to many different audiences? In this seminar, we look at how everyone in the BSO has a role to play in the creation and maintenance of the positive image of the BSO. How we can utilise and manage the different media streams available and what are the individual skills each of us needs to champion our work. In a crowded market place, only those who are visible are seen. How you become more visible and what future developments we need to be aware of are also covered. O.5 Delivering value including networking opportunities for members Both private and public BSOs need to demonstrate clear value to members as BSOs face increasing competition from public and private bodies alike. These "barbarians at the gates" are challenging BSOs to redefine our role and position. How is your BSO affected? What strategy do you adopt? What are the results from those who have already reassessed and adapted? This course will offer insight into developing a strategic vision for your BSO: from mapping out competition to examining the fundamental mission and core values on which one can build for the long term. As a member of a BSO, one of the major benefits for a company is the opportunity to network with other businesses. All BSOs offer networking opportunities breakfast briefings, business after hours, lunches, social events. This course looks at some of the more successful networking events organised by BSOs in detail, drawing best practices from them. O.6 Quality management Many initiatives are being undertaken within business support organisations to assure and manage quality including the use of ISO, benchmarking and other mechanisms. Increasingly, the vital importance of excellent standards and highest quality member services is being recognised. We have also begun to appreciate the need to sell a quality image of ourselves, to associate - in the public mind - the terms BSO with quality. This course will explore the initiatives being pursued by different Chamber organisations in different EU countries. O.7 Development of fee-based services Besides membership fees, services play an increasingly important role in the budget of BSOs. Some BSOs generate less than 50% of their budget from services, others up to 70-80%. How to

diversify income? How to define fee-based services? Which new services can generate better revenue? The course will also look into some best practice to maximise income from sponsorship and advertising, and will look into ethical standards how far can we go in selling the BSOs image, should we follow a code of conduct?

O.8 Investment promotion/territorial marketing One of the key pillars in regional and local development is the ability to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as it has clear benefits in terms of growth generation, creation of jobs, and competitiveness increase. At the same time, companies may need assistance in outsourcing or relocating their production facilities, in order to survive global competition. This is a task that is normally performed by the national investment promotion agencies. Do the BSOs have any kind of role to play in this field? What about, for instance, marketing programmes with the objectives of promoting your region? Is there a new trend trying to put trade and investment promotion together? O.9 SMEs & Entrepreneurship the role of BSOs in making entrepreneurship a reality Small businesses are the largest segment of BSO membership and one of the fastest-growing segments of the economy. This course will seek to identify best practices, and help you plan and implement a comprehensive SME development strategy for your BSO. O.10 Female entrepreneurship how to mobilise the untapped economic potential and increase BSO membership What can a BSO do to attract women entrepreneurs as members? How can they support the creation of business by women and thus actively contribute to fostering economic development? Based on the longstanding experience of EUROCHAMBRES Women Network, different aspects of female entrepreneurship will be highlighted and what BSOs can do to reach out to that untapped segment of potential economic players. O.11 Relations with other business groups competition or partnership? Complementary or competitive? Threat or opportunity? How would you describe your relationships with employers federations, sectoral associations, small firms groups and the very many other business representative organisations that have evolved in the recent past? This course will seek to identify potential areas of conflict, and how such difficulties might be overcome.

II. Personal development O.12 Entrepreneurial Leadership skills What is entrepreneurial leadership? And what makes good leaders? This workshop is to enable all delegates to look at key aspects of their own leadership spirit to look at characteristics and behaviours, skills and attitudes required to produce an action plan for entrepreneurial development. Participants will discover the most effective techniques for guiding teams, mentoring individuals and enabling teams to manage and lead change.

O.13 Improving personal communication in a business environment Success in business requires a range of high-level communication skills and through this session delegates are given the opportunity to look at their own communication skills and to explore ways of becoming a better communicator, leader, influencer and facilitator. Delegates will take part in a range of exercises and tasks designed to heighten awareness of the process of communication and take away a set of new skills that can be used immediately.

O.14 Negotiation skills All of us negotiate every day, it is an integral part of the working relationship. It can be for something big like a new project or something smaller like the wording of an article. In all negotiations the same principles apply. In this course we will look at how to be an effective negotiator, how to move past the win/lose scenario and reach a point where you can find win/win ways of negotiating. The skills of negotiation are enriching, reduce conflict in the work place and lead to better results and better people through better outcomes. These skills are also transferable to our lives outside of work whether negotiating the price of a car or clearing up misunderstandings. O.15 Motivating staff This course demonstrates some proven, practical skills used to renew staff commitment, raise productivity and stimulate willingness to change. It discusses the context of the workplace and how it interacts with different behavioural styles and temperaments. Participants will learn techniques to communicate expectations in order to achieve mutual understanding and motivation. O.16 Anticipation and conflict resolution This course will help participants anticipate and deal with conflict. It will focus on examining the

causes of conflict; the appropriate styles for dealing with it and communication models that can help resolve conflicts and build stronger business relationships. The course will show that conflict is inevitable and can, if managed correctly, be beneficial both at the individual and organisational level.

THE ALUMNI NETWORK

Since the first EUROCHAMBRES Summer Academy in 1998 more than 1500 Chamber managers from all over Europe and beyond have joined the Academy. They are part of an evergrowing network sharing interests, challenges as well as projects and new ideas. This network is accessible via a dedicated interactive website. After each Academy, each participant can register online to access the Academy Alumni website with a personalised password and username. On this interactive website you can search for former participants and course leaders, download course presentations and exchange ideas or search partners for your projects. See more details on http://academy.eurochambres.eu

APPLICATION DETAILS
The East Invest Academy is open to executives and directors from business support organisations from the six EaP countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). Interested applicants are invited to fill in the East Invest Academy application form that is available on the East Invest website and with the national focal points in the six EaP countries and return the applications to the attention of Irina Tikhonova: tikhonova@eurochambres.eu with a copy to after-mentioned contact people in their respective country by 05 August 2013 (inclusive) Armenia: Mr. Vladimir Amiryan: vamiryan@armcci.am Azerbaijan: Ms. Elnaz Gahramanova: expo@chamber.az Belarus: Ms. Victoria Dedock: vide@cci.by@cci.by Georgia: Ms. Nino Chikovani: nino@gcci.ge Moldova: Mr. Mihai Bilba: bilba@chamber.md Ukraine: Ms. Liudmyla Avdievska: lkv-dpi@ucci.org.ua

We look forward to meeting you soon! Any other questions? Please contact the Academy coordinator at EUROCHAMBRES: Sophie Devos (devos@eurochambres.eu / tel: +32 2 282 08 72) Or visit the East Invest website www.east-invest.eu/en/activities/for-bsos/academies/east-invest-academies

This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of EUROCHAMBRES and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.