Murcia's Regional Action Plan was presented last Friday 14th December. CEEIM, as partner of REBORN Project, during the first phase of the project, has worked to implement the POR FESR Program 2014-2020, regarding the issues addressed by the project: fight against the stigmatization of entrepreneurs in difficulty or incurred in bankruptcy and creation of restart opportunities. In particular, the policy instrument related to the project is the Thematic Objective 3 - Promoting the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises, This objective has several Investment priorities, being the most significant for REBORN project: 3a – Promoting entrepreneurship, in particular by facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas and fostering the creation of new firms, including through business incubators.
Specific actions to implement in phase 2 of REBORN project can be summarize in:
ACTION 1 | IMPROVEMENTS AND ENHACEMENT OF PROMETEO PLATFORM AIMED AT THE STARTER, ENTERPRISE IN DIFFICULTY AND RE-STARTER
This action is in line with the need to coordinate the work done by different stakeholders at regional level who participate in the (re)-entrepreneurs’ ecosystem. In this sense, it is foreseen the agreements between regional and local governments as well key actors of the ecosystem to coordinate efforts that incorporate support for the re-entrepreneurship in current services; to develop a map of regional services and a Protocol of financing, training and advice.
In order to coordinate all the existing services for the (re)entrepreneurs, the Regional Development Agency, INFO has developed a web platform called PROMETEO (http://prometeoemprende.es/) where all the current resources for (re)entrepreneurs existing in the Region of Murcia are uploaded. Therefore, the efforts would be focused on disseminating this platform and, on the other hand, to enhance the use of this platform among all stakeholders who have a role in the regional re-entrepreneurship ecosystem for the benefit of the entrepreneurs.
ACTION 2 | INTEGRAL SYSTEM OF EARLY WARNING AND CAPACITY BUILDING FOR ENTREPRENEURS
One aspect of the early warning system is the need to train entrepreneurs to avoid bankruptcy. Therefore, REBORN project has planned to design and implement a service that would comprise from the advice in early requests derived from Prometeo and other sources, to the capacity building required using an on-line tool.
The reception of the requests via Prometeo or other sources will continue with a Training Plan aimed at solving the problems face. There will be training pills for entrepreneurs in: business administration how to prevent and deal with commercial financial problems and causes of bankrupcy, prevention and management of failure including commercial consequences, ethical and emotional aspects. Key aspects will be design and implementation of financial schemes and failure management - to verify the learning of basic management knowledge, acquisition of good business habits, permanent use and regular simple management tools (control panel, cash flow statement ...) and verification of the first signs of danger revealing legal and social problems, financial difficulties, etc. The early warning will be applied to SMEs and the capacity building will serve to all stages of the entrepreneurship and re-entrepreneurship.
ACTION 3 | SUPPORT TO OVERCOME THE FINANCIAL BOTTLENECKS FOR RE-STARTERS
A holistic approach is needed for the failed entrepreneur and the most promising action would be providing the service of RENACE including improvements of the lessons learnt through the interregional learning process for support to enterprises in difficulties in Wallonia. Another key action is as the protocol has been defined to transfer the model to all the Chambers of Commerce who already agreed to cooperate adopting the methodology and providing cooperation in the definition of catalogue of experts from whom, the entrepreneurs that had a bankruptcy could obtain support to trigger the 2nd Chance Law implementation.
Thanks to the participation of Murcia Region in REBORN project, RENACE (Reborn in English) programme was born. RENACE is a programme promoted by the Regional Government of Murcia Region for social recovery and the promotion of entrepreneurial and occupational re-entrepreneurship in the Region of Murcia also submitted as a Best Practice by CEEIM. RENACE Program supports self-employed people and individuals who, due to the crisis, have seen their business project fail and who, until now, have had to face accumulated liabilities through their assets. Individuals or legal entities whose commercial activity should have ceased due to the crisis and who are subject to a commercial debt deriving from their professional activity.
