In accordance with its Action Plan, AmCham’s SME Committee decided to organize its own seminar series early this year. Members of the Committee agreed that the series would give a good platform to SMEs to express their needs, problems and also focusing on improvement possibilities of these companies.
Having held several meetings, Committee members tried to highlight major obstacles and tried to come up with ideas on how to transfer knowledge to small- and medium sized enterprises, and how to help them to reach their goals with implementing these technical improvements.
After a lengthy discussion, the Committee came up with the idea to start with a four-part seminar series. The aim of the presentations was to help companies find the best business solutions. The series was scheduled for the fall-winter season in 2011.
The first seminar in 6th of October was dedicated to the Cloud Computing solutions, which are among the most popular and important IT topics. Growth companies need to become more competitive in their business processes in support of reliable computing systems. Presenters gave an overview on how company’s IT costs can be reduced with these resources. They do not have to buy expensive hardware or possess expensive IT investments, because they can be competitive in the business community simply through renting the necessary equipment and software.
The topic of the second event (October 26, 2011) was Social Media - how SME can use this communication channel in order to reach the more clients and business partners. According to these presentations the organizers wanted to highlight how good marketing strategy makes the company more successful and how important on-line marketing tools can be.
Presenters of the third forum (November 17, 2011) highlighted the importance of good communications skills. In selecting this topic the Committee’s main goal was to make it clear that with the improvement of personal communications skills, management can make a company even more successful. If entrepreneurs want to be more successful they have to invest themselves, communicate better and manage themselves better.
The series is planning to conclude in January 2012 with an HR related topic. During the presentations we would like to summarize a SME-related issues in changing management and give ideas on how to select and use successful HR strategy.
The members of the SME Committee hope that through these seminars, the Committee will be able to give recommendations and suggestions to small companies on how to stay competitive, find cost-effective solutions, and to continue to play an important role in this continuously changing business environment.
To read the action plan for 2010 please click here.
