In light of the global energy crisis, it is suggested by the European Commission that “the clean energy transition is the best insurance against price shocks in the future, and needs to be accelerated” Rising global energy prices have been occupying the news recently. It is linked to the post-pandemic recovery and expected to last throughout the winter. While it is a concern for citizens and all kinds of institutions, SMEs and energy-depended businesses are impacted the most.

The questionnaire on the internationalization topic will be included in the GT4SME digital toolkit, the final deliverable of the project, which will be published by the end of October / beginning of November 2021. The 5th transnational project meeting (TPM) of the GT4SME project took place in a hybrid way in the middle of September and the theme in focus was internationalization and SMEs. During the thematic TPMs, consortium partners have been working on a case-SME to boost w

While the main beneficiaries of the Interreg Europe Programme are public and managing authorities, SMEs can benefit from the programme by joining various cross-border project partnerships. Supporting SMEs in the field of ‘Financial Access’ is one of the core topics of our project, GT4SME. In the framework of the project, we have learnt a lot about available funds and partnership strategies for funded projects that apply to SMEs. One of those is the Interreg Europe, which is a

Having a fruitful discussion with an expert as such, and particularly seeing how he connected three topics of our project, was very rewarding for our project team. The fifth transnational project meeting (TPM) of GT4SME took place in a hybrid way in the middle of this month, September 2021. As the strategic partnership aims at improving knowledge and skills through exchange of practices, external guest speakers are always invited to project meetings. The theme of the last TPM

During the third transnational project meeting of GT4SME, the German partner, N&P Business Consulting, shared its digital tool that they use to evaluate employee satisfaction in SMEs of all sizes. The third transnational project meeting (TPM) of GT4SME took place online in the middle of April. As the strategic partnership aims at exchange of good practices among the partners, each partner presents a good-practice example from its own work or from another case in its country /

While scarcity is a problem that everyone can relate to, abundance is another extreme that most people hardly relate to as a problem. In the age of internet and information overload, abundance of information proves to be a bane of many sorts. Access to EU funds is one such area. European Union’s SME support and Innovation provides plethora of avenues to support SMEs. While common sense dictates that with billions of funds available, there is opportunity for every good sustain

A collection of “how-to briefs on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals locally” has recently been published, presenting UN-SDG11 related good-practice examples from various cities. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities today and the figure is expected to rise 60% by 2030 and to almost 70% by 2050. While the cities are drivers of economic growth in a country, containing most of the business, they are also main generators of waste and pollution. Many b

The Bogazici University Industry 4.0 platform conducted a survey about digital transformation of the Turkish SMEs, called Tool for Digital Transformation Evaluation of the Turkish SMEs or D3A. Digital transformation affects companies of all sizes, both multinational corporations with huge supply chains and small traditional shops in rural areas. SMEs, being crucial part of economies, must pursue the opportunities offered by digitalization, not only for their own survival but

There has been a drastic increase in home office work around the world since March 2020 due to the effects of Covid-19 crisis. While for some people working from home has slowly become the new “norm”, some businesses have struggled to adapt to the new situation of increased remote work. The Commercialization Center of Istanbul (BTM), in cooperation with Big Cat Research, has conducted two survey studies to see the impact of remote-work on SMEs and Startups during the pandemic

The Covid-19 crisis has once again proved the need for strong infrastructure provided by the state in thriving of entrepreneurship; and the importance of entrepreneurship in the development of rapid and new solutions to the crisis. During COVID-19-time many SMEs are suffering, some of them had to close their doors and make their workers redundant, but majority of them tried to stay in business. It is evident that e-commerce offers easily accessible and lucrative opportunities