Belgrade, Serbia – December 20, 2007 – Meteor SN Biro, a company based in Belgrade, a Canon representative and one of the major regional players in office-equipment sales and distribution, approached Business Advisory Service (BAS) in Serbia for consulting and financial assistance in restructuring its business operations.
The BAS grant is a key component of BAS Program assistance, thus helping financially constrained enterprises, such as Meteor SN Biro, to access prime consultancy services. The new market economy and growing competition put pressure on this 15-year old company to improve organizational efficiency, and to restructure the company so that further growth – and the business relationship with the main supplier, Canon – could be sustained.
On April 17, 2007, Meteor SN Biro retained PRODIREKT, a management consultancy and HR development firm accredited by the BAS program, to help the company improve its operations. PRODIREKT developed the project, with the goal to implement two separate business improvement processes within 60 days – a business audit and a series of introductory HR training sessions.
PRODIREKT completed the project on time, while providing Meteor SN Biro with the detailed description of the company’s current state, and the recommendations of how to improve the business processes and management structure. During the business process audit, PRODIREKT considered the macro and micro aspects of Meteor SN Biro: strategic and goal setting process; planning function; connections between the company’s departments; reporting structure and involvement of employees at various decision making levels; staffing; ties between job descriptions, incentive systems, activities, and processes; performance evaluations.
Upon the completion of the second stage of the business audit, PRODIREKT conducted a series of introductory HR training sessions, namely:
- Business Communication and Human Behaviour
- Organizational Behaviour and Work Efficiency
- Team Management & Leadership
The main part of the training was devoted to all company employees, aimed at improving verbal and non-verbal communication internally, within the company, and externally, with the suppliers and customers. The second part of the training concentrated on enhancing employee work efficiency through team building, better time management, better problem solving and decision making, etc. The last part of the HR development, related to the team management and leadership training, was provided for the company management.
The HR training was received extremely well by the employees and management of Meteor SN Biro, and showed immediate, positive results regarding internal personal relations, and the communication process.
Meteor SN Biro gave the business advisory services of PRODIREKT the highest remarks in the BAS Program’s consultancy work evaluation, while BAS Program in Serbia featured PRODIREKT’s business advice and services to Meteor SN Biro as one of the best projects performed in 2007.
About BAS Program
Business Advisory Service (BAS) is the program of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which has successfully implemented 6,600 projects in 22 countries. The program backs the development of small and mid-sized enterprises in transition countries by providing business advice and services, as well as the development of domestic consulting market. The Government of the Kingdom of Netherlands has been a donor of the BAS program in Serbia, and until November 2011, it provided donations in the amount of 3 million Euros. BAS supports local private companies in all industrial branches in various segments of management and business consulting. An approved project is supported with a grant amounting up to 50% of the net costs of the project, while the total grant cannot exceed 10,000 Euros.