Digital First Aid Kit ENTrepreneur’s for recovering from COVID-19 pandemic

<< Background >>Following the study related to needs analysis carried on by partner organisations, attached to the application form, we conclude that the lesson learned from Covid-19 is that the maturity of digitalization strongly depends on the business sector and the firm’s value proposition. The smaller the company, the more difficult is the digital transformation. Not all micro-businesses have the capacity to undertake digital transition. They find it hard to rethink their business model, adopt new digital practices and integrate basic digital processes. The well-known phrase “survival of the fittest” becomes genuine: a changing environment requires adaptation, and within the next years we will face many disruptive changes, like “greenformation”. Lock-downs and a rapid decrease in customers even after re-opening businesses have hit retail and tourism, while many of the large, digital retailers have thrived through the crisis. The reaction of many businesses has been described as “shock and awe”, only few of them tried to adapt in a flexible way, e.g. by reaching out to customers through the internet, organizing delivery services or creating associations of businesses for sharing resources for delivery, marketing and payment.<< Implementation >>Project activities being carried and reached according to the implementation plan were the following: a) Project management and implementation, including: - Administrative management : the Project Management Team was set up, 4 agreements with partners were elaborated and signed, the implementation plan of the project was elaborated, the guidelines for the implementation were discussed, the monthly timesheets and the progress reports were filled in for the reporting period, the timetable of the project was updated taking into consideration the starting date of project implementation, a repository for all the documentation relevant for the project was created on Google Drive by partner Storytellme and documentation was uploaded by all partners, project documents were recorded and filed. - Communication between partners was continuous through online zoom meetings, e-mails, Doodle, Google Drive repository. - Regarding the dissemination of the project activities, the following activities have been carried out: the dissemination plan was elaborated and agreed by the partners, web page of the project was created: https://digientaid.eu/, with information in English, RO, DE, PT, SI and GR, 4 newsletters were elaborated and uploaded on the website of the project, a flyer was elaborated and uploaded on the website of the project (https://digientaid.eu/2022/10/07/digientaid-flyer/), the top content of the site had 367 page views. Facebook page of the project: https://www.facebook.com/digientaid/ was created and updated with information related to the aim of the project. 92 posts were created with a reach of over 53700 users, according to the dissemination report provided by partner Storytellme.- Financial management: monitoring the financial management of the project; the financial guidelines were sent to the partners, transfers related to the project implementation were done, according to the signed agreements, the expenses related to project implementation were monitored. - Qualitative survey of the project implementation, ISOB invited all partners to online Process quality survey, collected feedback by partners on process quality in a number of quality dimensions. b) Development of the following project results: PR1 Matrix of Crisis Resilience and Digital Customer Retention Competencies for small businesses; PR2 Self-Assessment-Test for the crisis agility and digital skills of entrepreneurs;PR3 Consultant Training Toolkit - presented in C1 training; PR4 Development of small vulnerable SME and self-employed resilience and digital agility blended training programme - presented in C2 training. c) Planning and organization of the transnational meetings (location, agenda, presentations, certificates etc), that took place in Nicosia (CY), with 8 participants (+1 online), in Ljubljana (SI), with 11 participants, in Lisbon Almada (PT), with 11 participants and in Brasov (RO), with 8 participants (+1 online), collecting and analysing the feedback from the participantsd) Preparation and organising of the training activity C1: preparation and carry on the face-to-face training, that took place between 21-23.03.2023 in Ljubljana (SI), preparation and carry on the online training, collecting and analysing the feedback from the participantsf) preparation and organising of the training activity C2: preparation and carry on the face-to-face training, that took place between 13-15.09.2023 in Lisbon Almada (PT), preparation and carry on the online training, collecting and analysing the feedback from the participantsf) Preparation and carry on the workshops related to crisis resilience, business sustainability and digital readinessg) Preparation and organising the multiplier events in each partner country and the final conference, collecting and analysing the feedback from the participants