Nucleus activities,
sustainability and support
Nucleus
activities are divided in three groups.
The first
one is a long series of small, easy to do, almost monthly activities; most of
them are free or very cheap. Their individual impact at enterprise level is
small, but the sum of all the activities produces changes at entrepreneur
level. The most important effect of these activities is related to building
trust, creating social capital and strengthening the nucleus. The main impact
of these activities is to show clearly that the nucleus is able to do things
and achieve results that could not be achieved by each individually. This is
why these activities are so important. Is the glue, the cement that keeps the
nucleus members together.
These
activities could be done within the nucleus group, by themselves, or by local
providers that would not charge for presentations, benchmarking visits,
technical visits, sharing information or experiences, visiting fairs and
exhibition. At this point the initiative, the knowledge and the leadership of
the counsellor plays a key role.
The
second level of activities is more complex, more expensive and requires more
time to be organized. They have a cost to be shared and there is a need of
service providers or sources of know-how to be available. A more professional
approach is needed at this point. As this activities are more oriented to solve
administrative and managerial problems is not difficult to find resource
person, or sources of know-how. And prices and levels could vary a lot. At this
point the cost is higher and some kind of economic support would be needed by the
project or by other donors that could be interested in support some sectors or
activities.
This list
of activities includes trainings, (cost calculation, human resources, managing and
negotiation techniques, among many others) participation in Fairs as exhibitors,
hiring consulting companies together, negotiating prices and commercial issues.
The third
level of activities is oriented to solve mainly technical problems. Not always
is possible to find good consultants or services providers at local or national
level able to solve these problems and to give the right answers. This is why
in most of the cases is necessary to look and find external experts, even from
other countries that could give proper solutions. This activities are too
expensive to be paid for a small group of entrepreneurs and in this case some
support would be needed.
Activities
like developing new products, modern techniques, improving technical skills,
technical advice, solution for special problems, that could not be solved with
local experts.
In resume:
1.- easy,
cheap and with small impact activities but with great results at nucleus level.
2.-
administrative and managerial activities with higher cost, complexity and with
more impact at enterprise level
3.-
technical consulting, skilled trainings, more expensive with external sources
of know-how.
Sustainability
The key
point about nucleus is to be sustainable. First point the counselling service
should be paid after 3 to 4 months. Activities from the first group in general
are not paid, or are not supported by the project as there are only small
running costs that must be paid by the SMEs themselves.
The
second level of activities usually has some support by the project, to be used
as a carrot it the starting phase, the first 12 to 18 months. Amount of
support, conditions, % of support is always negotiated and must be based in
shared costs where the SMEs pay most of the money, but the project support more
activities linked or covered by their core mandate. What to support, how much
and how is always a sensitive point, but as principle if the nucleus members
are not paying their monthly fees it makes no sense to support expensive
activities. "Why to support a nucleus that is not ready to support
themselves or to pay for the service?" This is the question that must be
openly on the table.
The third
level of activities would only be supported if there is a clear budget for
that. The activities must be directly linked with the project objectives and
indicators.
Always
the nucleus is free to look and find other donors that would like to support
concrete activities. An active nucleus would find other sources of support, but
in this case the leadership of the project would be eroded very quickly.
Support
what to
support? How to support? Until when? How much? How many activities? These are
the questions that must be answered. There is not a single answer it changes
from country to country, from project to project and even from partner to
partner. But it's necessary to have some kind of support for nucleus activities
and this support should be gradually decreased in a way that after a certain
time 1 to 3 years there is no economic support at all. But without some support
in the first 12 to 18 months it would be very difficult to achieve results with
enough impact as most of the free activities, as we have already seen, do not
have a significant impact if seen isolated. To have success histories to show
and share, economic subvention is absolutely mandatory.
Se há uma categoria em que os empresários são invencíveis é
em achar escusas para não fazer alguma coisa, quando não são escusas são
culpados. É muito útil ter sempre um bom pacote de escusas para justificar o
que não foi feito, na falta de escusas é bom ter a quem culpar. E os culpados
são sempre alguém externo, assim não há nada que possa ser feito.
