The smE-MPOWER Philosophy

• Business innovation

The generation of new value for the company is at the heart of smE-MPOWER philosophy. Business innovation is understood as
«…the creation of substantial new value for customers and the firm by creatively changing one or more dimensions of the business system…: the four key dimensions are: offerings (products/services); customers; processes; points of presences (distribution).» [Shawney Mohanbir 2006]

• Coaching vs. consulting
  
  Many companies have become alergic against consultants who are often perceived as selling their answers without sufficent understanding of the problem. smE-MPOWER Coaching is a bottom-up, client-centered coming alongside the company interests, expresses itself in listening and stregthening the client's capacity for decisions without presuming on the outcomes.

• SMEs

There are 23 million SMEs in Europe accounting for two-thirds of EU GDP and two-thirds of overall employment. Yet, international collaboration to many SMEs means uncharted territory, full of questions and obstacles. This is why they are the final beficiary of everything within smE-MPOWER.

• Open knowledge

Utilizing the power of the knowledge-based networking smE-MPOWER believes in the strength of the Open Knowledge paradigm. Network members freely share high-value practice knowledge in forms of tools, slides and checklists. Each collaboration partner is entitled to pass on the materials under a Creative Common Attribution-ShareAlike Licence. This enables all parties to profit from each other while buildung an increasingly valueable knowledgebase.

• Open innovation

  «Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. [This paradigm] assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance.» [Chesbrough et.al.2006]

• Blended Learning:
  
  Competence development for the emerging jobs in the knowledge economy needs to based on a consistent scheme of continuing on-the-job empowerment. Peer to peer learning, a dynamic knowledgebase, action learning, and e-learning modules all blend togehter to form a customized roadmap towards professionalisation.