Experiment Description
The experiment is designed especially for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, who want to improve their rating with banks to meet the conditions for investment loans. One to five Czech SMEs will be selected based on a joint workshop with CTU's financial partner, Česká spořitelna, a.s. and will be supported by CTU's business expert consultations. By assessing business plans and providing expert consultations, CTU will monitor whether their scoring ratings will improve and investment credit will become available to them.
The process of this experiment will be as follows:
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National Centre for Industry 4.0, a part of CIIRC-CTU will organize, together with its financial partner, Česká spořitelna, a.s. a special workshop to which CTU will invite the directors of selected SMEs – the companies with the high innovation potential lacking foreign financial resources. 30-50 directors of the Czech manufacturing SMEs will be invited.
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At the workshop, CTU will explain the importance of assessing which implementations are the most optimal for their future economic success.
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CTU will help the SMEs to identify the biggest opportunities in which areas shall invest in order to boost their world-wide competitiveness, increase flexibility and improve their product and gain more customers. Business models and its business goals are considered in the first place.
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By participating in this business experiment, SMEs will gain the latest knowledge in the field of production and digital and AI technologies. At the same time, SME will gain experience from specialists or companies that are at a higher level in the implementation of digitization and AI technologies.
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For the companies, that will show an interest, a quality assessment consultation directly on their visit to the company by CTU consultants will be performed, or, depending of the pandemic situation, simplified consultations based on online platforms will be provided.
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The resulting plan should serve as a supporting document for banks to assess the business potential and health of the company when applying for loans or as a basis for applying for subsidies, both at the local and European level.
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Expected Impact
The resulting business plans tailored-made by our experts shall help 1-5 SMEs to boost their business performance in the following ways:
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Data overviews and analyses give them the opportunity to focus their management efforts on solving significant complications in their production and not to deal with secondary issues, the solution of which will not bring the desired positive effect.
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SMEs will get a detailed overview of the status of all processes and the possibility of their systematic operational management.
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By obtaining foreign funds, whether in the form of a bank investment loan or a subsidy, SMEs are able to realize their investment plans.
The aim is not only to identify areas of companies to increase their digital level but to identify those areas in which "as little financial and time investment as possible" will increase the company's competitiveness as much as possible by increasing its digital and AI level.
Provide the company with clear and comprehensive information about the financial complexity of the solution, its return, and economic benefits for the future operation of the company, and, thanks to a comparison with the benchmark of the industry, increase its competitiveness. CIIRC CTU would like to achieve especially the following from this experiment for the selected SMEs:
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Gaining the latest knowledge in the field of production and digital and AI technologies.
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Gaining experience from specialists or companies that are at a higher level in the implementation of digitization and AI technologies.
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Raising awareness of their current business situation and their areas for the necessary improvements in order to at least maintain their position in world markets.
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Helping them gain know-how how to develop new products and services faster, respond more quickly to customer requirements, and get those products to market faster.
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Encourage them to gain a better position in value chains, increase productivity and facilitate participation in the industry- and research-led clusters.