The SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) Corporation, SME Bank and the Financial University will hold a competition of business plans for students

On Tuesday May 23, 2017, the Financial University, SME Corporation and SME Bank signed a three party agreement on cooperation. Among the key objectives of the upcoming collaboration – promotion of the entrepreneurship institute among young auditorium, support of business initiatives of the University’s students.

From the part of the SME Corporation, the agreement was signed by General Director – Mr. Alexander Braverman, from the part of SME Bank – by Chairman of the Management Board – Mr. Dmitry Golovanov, on the part of Financial University – by Head of Financial University Mr. Mikhail Eskindarov.

In the process of implementation of main provisions of the agreement, the SME Corporation will hold a competition for the best business plan among the students of the Financial University. The competition will last until the end of the year, and by its results, the best works will get awards.

Usage of material from the Portal of the SME Business Navigator is one of the most important conditions for the competition’s participants. The material was presented to the students of the Financial University within a framework of this meeting. 

With the help of the portal, it is possible to determine the optimal type of business, the best location, to calculate the business plan, to learn about competitors, to get information on credit products for small and medium sized businesses, measures of state support, participation in procurements of the biggest customers with state share, etc. The access to the system is free.

During creation of the SME Business Navigator Portal the experience of different countries was studied, however as of now there are no analogues in functioning and performance in Russia and in the world.

The technological platform “Stream” is a part of the eco system, which was developed by the group of companies Rambler&Co jointly with SME Corporation. The “Stream” provides businessmen with all necessary things on the initial stages of business: the personal website, tools for its promotion, system of analysis and efficiency tracing.

The system “Stream” is based on technologies and auditor’s data of Rambler&Co, such as “Rambler/top-100”, Rambler DMP (platform of managing the impersonal information and users’ data), Rambler DSP (advertising system, participating in  RTB auctions), and Ichiba. All these enable the businessmen with minimum knowledge to pass the way from creating a shop window until engagement of new clients.

Currently the Portal of SME Business Navigator is successfully operating in 169 biggest cities of Russia, mainly with population over 100 thousand people and in capitals of separate subjects of the Russian Federation. In 2017 a mobile application of the SME Business Navigator, enabling comfort work of businessmen with the portal from smartphones and tablets will be developed. According to the data of May 2017, the system has already over 70 000 of users from various regions of Russia.

Within a framework of the meeting with students the General Director of SME Corporation – Mr. Alexander Braverman told about the main services of the portal, responded to questions about creation and further development of the portal, as well as development of the SME segment in Russia, measures of support for small and medium sized companies.

The students of the Financial University told about their experience of using the Portal of MSE Business Navigator for forming a draft business plan, checking for counter agents, searching for the info about procurement plans of major customers, demonstrated the work of main services of the portal. The General Director of the SME Corporation – Mr. Alexander Braverman responded to the questions from the resource’s users and those, who only plan to register on the portal, told how to use the Portal of Business Navigator for the own start up in five steps.

He noted that during the whole period of the competition the specialists from the SME Corporation and SME Bank would present the educational master classes and webinars to the students in order to improve skills of work with the Portal of SME BN.

Currently the SME Corporation is proactively working for promotion entrepreneurship among young people. So, in the framework of Parliament’s Hearings on the theme of young people’s policy in the Russian Federation, which were held on May 22, 2017 in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the General Director of the Corporation – Mr. Alexander Braverman told that the complex of implemented actions included in particular cooperation with the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (direction  – joint realization of educational programs of the Corporation) and the Union “Agency of development of professional communities and working staff “World skills of Russia” (direction – informing the young people about possibilities of opening the own business and help in employment for participants of the system of professionals’ championships” (World Skills Russia). In addition, the young people auditorium is actively using the Portal of SME Business Navigator. So, according to the statistics the users in age of 18-14 years now make 52, 4% from the number of registered users of the portal. In addition, in future the Corporation will continually cooperate with universities in issues of support of business initiative and informing about the implemented actions for support of small and medium sized companies, as well as improvement of the level of specific knowledge of students in the field of business operation.