Screening of international growth potential

By project EIS

Published on 27 November 2018

Denmark

Midtjylland

About this good practice

International growth potential is a company‘s ability and willingness to increase its international activities and especially export turnover
Not all companies have the same international growth potential
Screening for international growth potential ensures the best match between services offered by the public and the company‘s international growth potential
By offering services related to potential, public money is spend on companies with the highest return on investments
All companies that are given advise by the measure manager are screened and rated for international growth potential levels A,B and C
The screening criterions are: international growth ambition and international market potential, but also scalability, organisational capacity, funding opportunities, use of new technology and potential as role model are taking into account
When calculating the potential levels A, B and C, the different screening criteria are weighted according to importance. Thus, for international growth potential the screening criteria "international growth ambition" and "international market potential" has the highest weighting
There are services available to all levels of companies (A, B and C)
Business Development Centre Central Denmark (BDCCD) is the main stakeholder of this practice
Beneficiaries are SMEs (EU definition) which carry out international activities or have potential to do so, particular focus manufacturing, food and processing, energy and environmental tech.

Expert opinion

This is an interesting good practice from Denmark, where international growth potential levels have been developed to provide the most suitable and needed support for local SMEs. More specifically, each SME undergoing the assessment process with one of the consultants from Business Development Centre Central Denmark will be assigned a level, A, B or C, depending on the company’s ability and ambition to increase its international activities, especially its export turnover. According to the assigned levels, the SMEs can then benefit from various support services. This ensures that the consultants can offer and companies can benefit from services that are the most relevant for them at that specific stage of development. The evidence of success of this practice is convincing and the methodology itself has high replication potential in other regions and countries as well, provided that there are enough resources to develop such an internationalization support program.

Rene Tonnisson

Works at Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform

Resources needed

• Approximately 1,5 - 2 mio. € for running the service each year (screening of approx. 1,200 SMEs)
• It takes approx. 2 – 5 hours for a consultant to go through the screening process for 1 SME

Evidence of success

• In 2016, BDCCD screened 1,246 SMEs for growth potential (not just for this measure) of those:
• 245 SMEs received an individual grant
• 402 SMEs participated in collective programs

• Outputs/results (SMEs participating in 2014)* achievements 1 year and 2 years after participation:
• 457 and 746 jobs were created
• 32 and 59 mio. € in additional turnover in exports
• 83 and 156 mio. € in additional turnover

*Compared to SMEs that have not received any services.

Potential for learning or transfer

• It will be relatively easy to implement this Good Practice in other regions if the funding is there, to target services for internationalisation to SMEs with highest potential for internationalisation.
• The GP is a working in a face-to-face setting
• It is fundamental to have consultant that understand the SMEs to do the screening