Strategies of the Development of Entrepreneurship and SME

and new technologies. Information provided consists of a comprehensive literature on patents,specialised studies on innovation trends and latest developments, and innovative solutions forenterprises. The service is provided from the national contact point in Bucharest againstpayment.Advisory services and trainingAt national level there are few providers of advisory services that can ensure awidespread presence in the country. NASMEC planned to set up local offices to provide an easyto access help desks/contact points for SME. These offices are meant to provide basic advisoryservices, and to assist entrepreneurs with applying for national grant schemes.Another governmental body very active in this field is the National Agency for Labourforce and Employment (ANOFM), which is managing a special programme, “Businessconsultancy”, for providing consulting services to unemployed persons or youngsters thatintend to start their own business. The program is delivered through ANOFM local branches,where special consulting units have been set up.Because of their widespread presence in the country, Chambers of Commerce mightalso play effectively the role of business support organizations for SME. In Romania, there are42 Chambers of Commerce, established as non-governmental and non–profit organizationswith free membership. Entrepreneurs’ associations are also involved in delivering supportservices for their members.Besides these nationwide structures, there are also some local business support centers,offering a range of business development services to a local clientele of businesses. Many wereestablished as not-for-profit organizations upon donors’ support, they targeted SME, but theirsustainability was doubtful. Furthermore, they were much inclined to supply very generalbusiness services with a low degree of specialization, failing thus to address more sophisticatedneeds. On the contrary, the market of private business consulting companies is quite dynamicand has recently developed. It is now to this market segment that governmental and PHAREprograms have turned their attention, in order to help these companies to deliver qualityservices for SMEs in view of EU accession.On the other hand, demand for business advisory services is still weak among RomanianSMEs, as the results of the survey conducted by NASMEC in 2005 reveal. The chart belowclearly says that the proportion of SMEs that never made use of advisory services in quiteimpressive (more than 60%).Company size seems to be positively correlated with the demand for advisory services,since larger companies have sufficient financial means to procure these services from themarket. On the contrary, there are not remarkable sector differences, although it might bededuced that the manufacturing sector is the most advanced in making use of businessconsulting services.The following chart describes sector differences in procuring consultancies by type ofservices used. Obviously, sectors display different patterns that are linked to very specificcompanies’ needs. However, it can be deduced that SME are mostly making use of trainingservices and of advice on functional area of business activity such as finance, marketing,production and design. The share of companies that were asking for assistance in the field ofsafety and quality standards and certificates is rather low, excepting the construction sectorwhere safety regulations are very restrictive.47