Family Businesses – Workshop for Entrepreneurs & Policy Makers:
As part of the European project “NextSMEs” (https://nextgensmes.eu/), which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ program (Project #:2024-1-MT01-KA220-VET-000255565), LT Synergy, the Cypriot partner in the consortium, held two workshops, each lasting two hours. The minimum number of participants in each workshop was 10.
The aim of the workshops and the project in general is to equip family SMEs with tools for successful succession planning and to address challenges such as professionalism, financial stability, and innovation. By raising awareness among stakeholders, we seek to ensure the longevity and prosperity of these businesses.
The first workshop was aimed at family business entrepreneurs and took place on November 28, 2025. It focused on dialogue and the exchange of views between generations of entrepreneurs, addressing current challenges such as digitization, technological upgrading, financial aspects, succession, etc. The workshop also included role-playing by participants, based on a hypothetical scenario in a family business.
The second workshop was aimed at policy makers and took place on 11/12/2025. The workshop focused on dialogue and the exchange of views between policy makers and institutional actors such as banks, chambers of commerce, and training centers, with the aim of understanding the current challenges faced by SME entrepreneurs, including bureaucratic obstacles and related issues.
At the end of the discussions, the online training platform created as part of the project was presented, which includes a training program divided into six different modules. These modules are designed as a useful training path for entrepreneurs and successors of small and medium-sized enterprises and can (optionally) lead to the award of certified micro-credentials.
Also, at the end of the workshops, participants were asked to use computers or smartphones to answer two types of electronic questionnaires (depending on the type of workshop), based on the topics discussed earlier.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that both workshops were conducted with great success and positive results, fully achieving the purpose for which they were organized.
