I was asked by the federation to speak at their yearly conference, held this year in Tallinn amidst unbelievably well preserved 13th century buildings. It is quite the setting!

The topic was the model that the OCRI Entrepreneurship Centre uses in the delivery of SME services to our client groups. An interesting fact is that while Small Business Centres in Ontario total 57, and serve an overall population base exceeding 12 million, in Finland they have over 417 local associations, 21 regional based centres and 49 trade centres serving a total membership base- country wide of approximately 90,000 businesses. 98% of these have less then 10 employees.

Finland‘s total population sits at around 5.2 million

Our strength and strategic alliances within the youth sector, as well as the ability of the EC to work quickly and effectively with private sponsors to support not only some of our funding requirements but also to act as key strategic partners in industry- is a novel concept for many of these centres. Being state-run limits, at times, their overall ability to act in an entrepreneurial manner- the hands-are-tied approach does not often instill confidence in the aspiring entrepreneur simply looking for help and advice.

A nugget of learning taken from the conference, and from my new Finnish friends- is their focus on the selling, and succession planning of and within SMEs. Where we have a “youth, starting and growing” focus, they include ‘selling’ to the mix as more and more businesses are requiring help in succession.

Our web site -and the strength of our domain- was a hit and was our forthcoming model for growth -iProfit (using a web 2.0 platform as a complement to face-to-face mentoring).

Some contacts outside the realm of the EC were developed and passed along to the appropriate OCRI personnel-..

Great trip- experience- people!

Kittos,

Micheal Burnatowski