Participating on the event is free.

However, registration is needed before the 13th of June by sending the registration form (download) to toth-baltasi@kovet.hu by email.

Bodroghelyi Csaba, KÖVET Association, bodroghelyi@kovet.hu, +36 1 473 2290

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play a major part in Finnish as well as in European economy. Supply chain members are often SMEs which specialize on a narrow product segment, e.g. a special type of electronic components, for the global industry. The European SMEs have been affected hard by the economic regression. They could, however, be in a stronger position and make a faster recovery if they had in place an adequate CR-policy. 

Crnet Ltd carried out a SME-market study in Finland in 2008 together with the Finnish Funding Agency For technology and Information, TEKES. The aim of the study was to clarify how familiar Finnish SMEs are with Corporate Responsibility (CR) practices and to what extent these are implemented in practice, e.g. what kind of tools have been adopted for improving the company’s CR. The SMEs were also inquired about their reporting practices. 

For this, a web-questionnaire was prepared that contained 12 questions. The link to the form was distributed to randomly selected SMEs in an E-mail which gave an introduction to the questionnaire. The enterprises were asked about their need of information or training on quality-, financial-, environmental-, safety- and security-issues.  The enterprises were given the option to remain anonymous, only the industrial branch was to be indicated by the answerers. The questionnaire was sent to a total of 927 enterprises and was completed by 89. The answers provided useful information about the CR-practices in the SMEs and Crnet Ltd has been able to use it for targeted marketing. The Finnish enterprises represented metal-, service-, printing and a few other industrial sectors.

The next step was named the "Global Markets project" or GloMar for short. The idea has been to carry out the study on the European market during 2009 and 2010. Crnet Ltd has looked for local partners in different countries through various European business networks. Public business advisory organizations in different countries as well as private consultancy enterprises have joined GloMar as partners. After the study has been completed in all countries, the partners have access to all results. Later will be made a publication  that summarizes all the observations and makes comparisons between SMEs in different parts of Europe. 

At beginning of June 2010 the study had been carried out in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain and was going on in Estonia, Germany, The Netherlands and Poland with the kind help of local partners. The questionnaire has been translated into 9 different languages and distributed to well over 10,000 SMEs throughout Europe. Answers from around 2,000 SMEs have been received. As in the Finnish study, the enterprises represent various enterprises from the metal-, service-, printing- and some other sectors.

Carrying out the Glomar -project together has provided a nice way to get to know each other. Crnet has visited partners in Austria, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain have been visited by Crnet. The results from the Glomar-study have been discussed during these visits. Building further, also other possible future collaboration projects relating to Corporate Responsibility have been discussed. One of the future goals is a network of European organizations collaborating in the field of CR for a mutual benefit.