There exists an interesting initiative of Hungarian IT companies in the field encouraging FP6 participation, which can serve as an example of how genuine sharing of information and expertise can benefit both information provider and receiver. Some 15-20 companies came together in December 2004, that were all interested in joining EU funded R&D projects within the framework of the FP6 program. Most of these were SME-s, some associations and some university research centers. Some of them already had experience in participating in EU funded projects while others came only to learn how to do this.
Continue reading ‘Self organising SME cluster in IT to help each other in FP6 participation’
Certain dating service concepts seem to be so successful that they are used in company match making as well. A good example is the ‘SpeedDating’ initiative of the Hungarian Association of IT Companies IVSZ - the largest professional association of the Hungarian ICT sector.
IVSZ organises match making events for small and large member companies. The concept is that during such an event, 3-4 large IT or telecom company manager provides an opportunity for 7-8 SME-s each to introduce themselves and to try to sell the idea why they could be a valuable partner to the large company.
Continue reading ‘IVSZ: Speed dating as applied to IT matchmaking’
Régens Rt. [www.regens.hu] is a Hungarian SME which has been consistently increasing its market share in the field of logistics information systems and related fields since its foundation in 1993. Today Régens is a steadily growing company with 35 employees and EUR 1.6m in turnover. One of the key elements in Régens’s success is an emphasis on - and constant investment - in innovation.
Régens is one of the relatively small number of Hungarian SMEs in the IT sector that believe in innovation as a source of competitiveness and have acted consistently with this belief. New products mark this all along the history of the company. One of these products, the Régens CUSTOM[r]S customs system, won the Hungarian Innovation Award in 2002.
Though there have been some Hungarian grants available for innovation support earlier, a new window of opportunity opened in 2004 when Régens realised the potential in the FP6 program of the European Union (though Hungarian organization could participate in the Framework Program as early as of FP4, this was not widely known outside the academic community).
Thus the company has started to explore FP6 opportunities in early 2004, and by early 2006 they became really successful in participating in winning consortia.
One key to this success has been to hire a dedicated person as an international project coordinator whose main task was to build a knowledge base of FP6 opportunities and practical knowledge as well as to actively search for appropriate collaborators and build a network of potential partners in proposals. The coordinator started visiting FP6 events in Hungary as well as international FP6 events. She established contact with a number of FP6 SSA projects in Hungary and was also an active initiator of an SME network established for exchanging FP6 experiences.
These efforts resulted in Regens taking part in several FP6-IST, FP6-SME, CRAFT and e-Ten proposals over the past two and half years, many of which were indeed successful. One of these is FLUID-WIN, a project which aims at developing an innovative B2B solution in the field of logistics.
Régens builds heavily on innovation in the company strategy, even to the extent that they explicitly integrate innovation activities into their competitive advantage offering and PR activities. Ms. Réka Moksony (moksony.reka@regens.hu) now heads the business development division. She also happens to be the dedicated person the company hired to build the FP6 knowledge of Régens, looks positively into the future and always welcomes potential partners for innovative projects.
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