4th BMDA Annual Conference
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The 4th Annual BMDA Conference “Creating Well-being – Entrepreneurs in the Driver’s Seat” took place in Helsinki, Finland on the 5 – 7th June 2006. The Conference gathered all together 82 participants from 14 countries – Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Georgia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Kazakhstan, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States of America. The Conference was hosted by POHTO – the Institute for Management and Technological Training and Turku School of Economics and Business Administration.
The 4th Annual BMDA Conference “Creating Well-being – Entrepreneurs in the Driver’s Seat” took place in Helsinki, Finland on the 5 – 7th June 2006. The Conference gathered all together 82 participants from 14 countries – Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Georgia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Kazakhstan, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States of America. The Conference was hosted by POHTO – the Institute for Management and Technological Training and Turku School of Economics and Business Administration. This Conference provided a forum for exchange and acquisition of information, for meeting colleagues and fellows entrepreneurs and for studying what makes or breaks the entrepreneur. The three keynote speakers were Prof. Antti Paasio from Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Mrs. Pirjo Karhu, CEO of Rödl & Partner Konsu and Dr. Klemens H. Fischer, Minister and Head of Department of Permanent Representation of Austria to the European Union. The topics covered the essence of entrepreneurship, what is needed to win the Finnish Entrepreneurship Award and entrepreneurship in the new European context. A group of 11 young researchers from the Baltic and Nordic region representing Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland has been created in order to prepare a profile of the target companies, working with them to identify a list of questions, which could form the basis of the visit. Armed with a series of questions, the researchers’ task was to create a profile of the company in order to be able to act as facilitators during the site visit. Prior to the conference, a workshop was held for the researchers and their supervisors, during which the various groups exchanged information, fine-tuned their preparation and developed additional questions to illuminate the concept of entrepreneurship as demonstrated by their target company. Thereafter, the participants in the conference were seated at tables according to the company they were due to visit, hosted by their guide, and began to become better acquainted with the organisations they were due to visit the following day. The outputs for each phase of the process were clearly described to the researchers: the morning workshop was for sharing; the afternoon for coaching of the participants; identifying entrepreneurship; enriching the knowledge; gathering information in the companies; feeding the results back to the plenary session, by sector; presenting a final report to the company within three weeks after the conference. Despite the challenging procedure, the conference participants were enthusiastic about the learning and the process. The companies were eager to share their information, and openly responded to all questions. In most cases, it was the founder of the company, the managing director or another senior member of the management who met the conference participants. They have been very cooperative, and the groups were able to gather a clear and impressive picture of the reasons for success in the particular organisation. The conference was treated to five very varied presentations, describing the benchmarking exercise in the companies and organisations visited. It had been agreed that only one presentation would be made per sector, to avoid repetitiveness, and this concentrated the mind. The researchers were informative, witty and innovative. They had been overwhelmed by the welcome and the openness of their hosts and repaid this by reporting convincingly the learning from the visit. It has been learned a lot during these visits. Clearly, the leadership of the enterprise or organisation has a great influence on the success or failure of the individual entity. The leader has to create a successful team, infused with the personality of the company or organisation, in order for the group to move forward in harmony. Individual initiatives are welcomed in the situations studied, and from these arise the motivation and dynamism to move the company forward. This Conference once again proved that such kind of event could be interactive, lively place, where the participants are the major contributors!
The two leaders of Business companies operating in the Baltics, Mr. Meelis Milder, General Director and Chairman of the Board of Baltica Grupp, Estonia and Mr. Evaldas Budvilaitis, CEO of JSC “New Vision Baltija”, Lithuania, presented “Success Story in Entrepreneurship” from each of the country.
The innovative approach has been used during the Conference. In addition to interesting speeches it was decided to re-invent the conference format by taking the participants to visit entrepreneurial organisations in the Helsinki region.
11 organisations agreed to participate in this innovative project. They included service organisations (ABB Oy Service, SOL); a design company (Kalevala Koru); Hi-tech companies (Meconet, IQUA, Sysopen Digia); support organisations, such as banks and municipal authorities (Nordea, City of Vantaa, Federation of Finnish Enterprises) and educational institutions (Dipoli, Haaga Polytechnic).
As a rule, there should come an outcome of these studies. First of all, a formal report to each of the host organisations. Thereafter, depending on the commitment of those involved, a series of cases, and perhaps further research. The group could become bigger, and could develop the study initiated during the conference. Even if only a small percentage of the researchers and their home institutions remains committed, it is a nucleus, which can create and grow.
