Creative and Innovation Driven Enterprises’ Network

Business Confederation of Macedonia is part of the project “Creative and Innovation Driven Enterprises’ Network”(CIDE-NET). The CIDE-NET project will be implemented by six (6) organizations from five (5) countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Macedonia and Greece). It will help entrepreneurs in the targeted sectors to manage competitive and viable businesses and improve their efficiency and sustainability. All sectors and all enterprises in which creativity and innovation could play an important role in boosting efficiency and competitiveness are potential beneficiaries of the project. Transnational cooperation between enterprises in different partner countries will be promoted through practical and theoretical learning and support activities. Educational activities will be organized and supported by user-driven innovative online mentoring tools. The digital platform will be designed and built to facilitate training and collaboration between partners, trainers and training, and also to support the learning of entrepreneurs from one another.

The project will support the thinking and opportunities of SMEs to transition to an internal ecosystem of an enterprise that is more competitive and developed. The project examines how the selected corporate philosophies and practices are evolving and reviews the effectiveness of their creativity and innovation strategies. It takes into account the comparative advantages of those enterprises and sectors and examines how their incompletely used “forces” can, under certain conditions, give them the “first driver” in attracting creative talents and implementing organizational and strategic reforms. In particular, for the purposes of the proposed project, consultations between partners resulted in the temporary identification of a number of sectors, such as processing of agricultural raw materials, textiles, tourism, IT services, which could be “focal areas” for project activities and transnational co-operation . This project focuses on the efforts of SMEs to transform current strategies and practices that are predominantly growth-oriented rather than innovation and creativity. Encouraging the creativity and innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises, leading to increased work and organizational skills, will affect competitiveness, especially in difficult economic conditions.

The ultimate goal of CIDE NET is the development of entrepreneurial learning programs to promote the innovation and competitiveness of SMEs. It also aims to establish permanent training / co-operation schemes for co-operation in order to continue to alleviate the disadvantages of weak and outdated work skills and a positive impact on cross-border cooperation, regional development and economic convergence.

The overall project goal reflects the needs and requirements set out in the EU 2020 Strategic Framework for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. The principles that are advanced with the EU2020 strategy will be respected when working on the goals and results of our project. This involves the implementation of European co-operation in lifelong learning training, whereby the open method of coordination (OMC) is used more efficiently and synergies are developed between the partners and the various other stakeholders.