Global Engagement
The EU Engagement section includes several WebQuests related to different steps in interregional commercial exchanges and business negotiations. It aims to develop a challenge-based learning environment fostering cooperative learning through guided discovery. With this kind of active learning, which offers BRIDGE participants a variety of sensory experiences, they can investigate issues and obstacles that actually exist in the real world of business.
EU Marketing Campaign
Your Western Balkan enterprise is about to launch a new product in the EU, and in preparation, you are in charge of planning a marketing campaign to introduce the product to the new EU market.
Understanding your target group when releasing new products or creating marketing campaigns is important. Using data and knowledge about different target groups and what is important to them is an important part of making a successful business.
In this WebQuest, you get to explore your enterprise, target group segmentation and analysis and finally plan your marketing campaign for the product release across the EU.
- How to determine your market position
- How to identify your target audience
- Setting goals and planning
- Create a campaign for the product launch
- Launch product/advertising campaign
Market and target group analysis is important for any enterprise wanting to launch a new product, market services to a new target group, or enter a new country. In this WebQuest, you are launching a product to a new market abroad in the EU.
It is important to do the work and have the knowledge from analysis to make strategic decisions about marketing or new additions to your enterprise´s product range.
- To succeed in the competitive EU market, you need to know your enterprise’s unique value proposition and how it stands out from the rest. A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool that can help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By conducting a SWOT analysis, you can discover your enterprise’s core competencies, address its challenges, leverage its potential, and avoid its pitfalls. A SWOT analysis can also help you craft a compelling positioning statement that showcases your enterprise’s distinctive advantages.
SWOT Analysis Explained – Forbes Advisor
2. Market research is essential for understanding your target audience and their preferences. By watching this video, you can learn different methods to conduct market research and find out who your potential customers are. You can choose the method that suits your enterprise’s goals and resources. Once you have identified your target audience, you need to analyse their wants and needs to figure out how to market your new product.. Knowing your target audience is crucial for designing effective marketing campaigns that resonate with them and persuade them to buy your product.
3. A marketing campaign is a strategic and systematic way to promote your product or service to your target audience. To create a successful marketing campaign, you need to plan ahead, set a clear goal, and follow up on the results.
Plan and set a goal for your advertising campaign/product launch, if you have data from the past use that for setting your goal. These resources can be useful for making the plan for your product launch/campaign.
SMART
4. Now it is time to make the campaign itself. It requires creativity, knowing your audience and cultural awareness.
You can use these resources for inspiration:
Storytelling: VIDEO
5. It is time to launch your campaign across the EU. Remember to evaluate the results, did you reach your goals? If not, can you find an explanation?
Knowledge (being aware)
- Elements required for making strategic marketing decisions
- Basic market research
Skills (being able)
- Create a Swot analysis
- Do market research
- Choose a target group
- Set goals and following up
Attitudes (appreciate to perform)
- Data is important for making a strategy
Through this WebQuest you have launched a marketing campaign for a product across the EU market. You have learned that knowing your enterprise and its position in the EU market and your target group are important aspects of being able to be successful. You have learned about setting goals and how it is important that you can evaluate those goals.
What did you learn from the SWOT analysis?
How did you decide on your target group?
Is your campaign reaching its goals?
How is the process different from what you usually do when launching a campaign?
Intercultural Communication
In today’s interconnected world, businesses from the Western Balkans face various hurdles when engaging in trade with countries of the EU. Cultural differences, language barriers, and geographical distances can either hinder or facilitate success in the EU marketplace. In a Practice Enterprise, you face many of the same challenges.
Connecting to a new partner abroad is exciting and interesting. Your own expectations and wish to present things perfectly, may however be a hindrance and make you feel uncertain about the call/meeting.
In this quest the focus is getting ready to make a connection abroad in the EU and how to remain calm and hopefully excited about making a connection.
- Research the culture
- Introduction
- Preparing for a call/meeting
- Practice/roleplay
- Make contact
In this scenario you are employed by an enterprise who wants to make new connections or get in contact with an existing partner from an EU country. It is your first time contacting someone from the EU for a business partnership.
Another option is you are preparing to join an EU event in the Practice Enterprise Network for the first time.
PEN Worldwide – Events & Competitions
- Research the culture
Before making contact, it is important to try to understand some basics about the culture in that country. Significant things to research include formal vs informal, workplace hierarchy, things to avoid, significant events, national holidays. Not all is equally important, but how formal you should be is worth keeping in mind.
It is ok to make mistakes, we all do, but having some basic cultural understanding will give you a better platform for successful international cooperation.
Do some research about the country with whom you wish to do business to gain some knowledge about the culture in the country.
For a basic overview of Cultural Business Etiquette
Use Google or another search engine to find resources about doing business in the EU target country.
You can search for terms such as, national holidays in the country, business etiquette in the country, workplace hierarchy in the country.
2. Introduction
Depending on your enterprise´s previous relationship with the business partner, it may not be as simple as calling a person from sales. How will you present your company? Send an introduction email, call them, contact on social media – there are multiple options.
Here is a link with inspiration for how to introduce your enterprise:
Introduce your Company
Decide how you want to introduce your enterprise and prepare the material you need.
3. Preparing for a call/meeting
The first thing to do when preparing for a call/meeting abroad potentially in a foreign language is to make a glossary of important words in the area of which you want to communicate. If you are presenting a new product, it could be delivery terms, payment terms, invoice, due date etc. These words could also be considered key words, even in your own language.
Make a word list of the most important terms relevant to what you will be calling/meeting about.
Your own expectations may lead you to feel some stress before a phone call or meeting, it is normal, particularly when you are the one performing or presenting. This resource contains tips for staying calm during any kind of presentation, the video is about phone calls specifically but the tips are universal.
Link
If you are making a call in a foreign language these tips may help on the language side of things, for some people these tips can help them make calls in their native language
4. Practice/roleplay
Now you have done research, have an idea of your enterprise presentation, prepared a word list for your topic and had advice on how to beat stress about presentation and how to make a call in another language. It is time to put everything together and get a colleague to help you do a practice or roleplay where you get to go through the meeting presentation you intend to do. This will let you practise and give you valuable feedback.
5. Make contact
It is time to make contact for real, whether by letter of introduction or through a phone call. Remember that your confidence doing this will grow the more you try. If you feel like it is still hard, start with lower stakes and while it sounds simple remember to smile. Call about simple questions such as, when can you deliver the order we placed on the marketplace, can you send us your catalogue, what colour/size options do you have for this product, etc.
Knowledge (being aware)
Cultural differences in and outside the workplace
Ideas for presenting your enterprise
Skills (being able)
- To overcome stress about presentations/ phone calls/ meetings
- To make contact with an international enterprise from the EU
- To find relevant vocabulary
Attitudes (appreciate to perform)
- Differences in culture
- Practise to improve confidence
There are many ways and reasons for making contact internationally. Contact across the EU is exciting and a great experience. Being stressed when having to perform is natural particularly if you have to communicate in a foreign language. Through this WebQuest you have learned about cultural awareness, made a glossary of key words, and decided how to present your enterprise. Finally you have practised how to make calls or do meetings with a colleague, and if you have done step 5, you have made your first contact with an enterprise from a new EU country.
Did anything about business culture in your target country surprise you?
Was your introduction effective?
How did the roleplay contribute to the preparation?
Did you successfully make contact?
What was the outcome of making contact?
Commercial outsourcing from the Western Balkans
Outsourcing is a business practice in which services or company functions are hired out to a third party on a contract or ongoing basis. It therefore involves a cooperation agreement between the outsourcer and a company already in the market.
The principle on which it is based is to make others do what they do better than we do, in order to reduce costs and free up resources to invest in the core business.
Outsourcing risks: placing a company in a situation of great dependence on suppliers, so the search for companies must be based on solid partnership and relationships: trust of both actors, convergence on objectives, and effective commitment.
Some of the criteria used in choosing new partners can be summarised below:
- quality standards
- adequate organisation and financial capabilities
- professional seriousness.
Your company is looking for the most reliable and sustainable partner from an EU country to carry out a business function to be outsourced, such as personnel management, accounting, commercial representation at a trade fair, etc.
Finding stable and reliable partners is a very important operation for a company. An unreliable partner often leads to a loss of image and reputation, with serious consequences and high costs for the company.
Research and identify the most suitable outsourcer from a new EU country, i.e. the one that best meets the needs of your PE, to entrust it with an important part of your PE business.
The search for a reliable partner must take into account three main parameters:
- the quality and reliability of the partner
- its financial and economic capacity
- its pricing policy
- the convergence of objectives between the two companies and mutual trust.
Follow this indication and find the most reliable partner to outsource part of your PE activities, you can choose, as highlighted, which part of the process you wish to outsource (i.e. personnel management, accounting, … ), as well as which EU country your partner is located in.
The steps in the process of finding an outsourcing partner for the assignment of a service are as follows, please follow them carefully to implement successfully your task:
- Analysis of the weaknesses of your company and identification of the service(s) to be outsourced
- Communicating your needs and expectations to potential partners
- Analysis of information about potential partners and selection of some
- Meetings (with two or more potential partners) to define the characteristics, methods, costs and payments of the outsourced service
- Choice of the most reliable partner based on the outcome of the meetings
- Conclusion of the outsourcing contract
Knowledge (being aware)
- Principles of Business Organization
- The Outsourcing Contract
- Basics of EU Law
Skills (being able)
- Analyse your PE processes
- Select the best one from several offers
- Negotiate the economic and organisational terms of an outsourced service
- Draw up an outsourcing contract
Attitudes (appreciate performing)
- Ability to analyse and make decisions
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Effective communication
You have learned how to analyse and choose a partner from the EU to whom you entrust an important part of your work process, and you have experienced how to draw up an outsourcing contract. To this end, you have applied your knowledge, skills, and personal attitudes to a complex task that real companies are often called upon to tackle.
We encourage you to continue your journey as an “entrepreneur” and further develop your skills.
What did I learn from this experience?
How did I feel while working?
Did I actively and effectively collaborate and communicate with others?
Have I been able to make decisions and choices in a convinced and shared way with others?
Did I have any difficulties during the accomplishment of the task? If so, how did I overcome them?
What can I still improve on?
Note: In the event that outsourcing is requested to an EU partner country, it is necessary to pay attention to the reliability parameters of the country as well as the partner.
Interregional EU/Balkan Events
The goal of interregional trading events is to increase international trade between Practice Enterprises from the Western Balkans and the EU. These events include Intensive Trading Events and Practice Enterprise Trade Fairs, and can be held online or in-person.
Before, during and after the event trainees learn and test a variety of skills. Before the event, trainees learn how to distribute roles, work in a team and plan their event participation. During the event they test their sales pitch and negotiation skills and the commercial processes of order processing. They get to experience different languages, cultures and business etiquettes. The interactions teach them soft skills that can be put to use in the real world of business. After the event, they learn about post-event follow-up and turn lessons learned into improvements at future events
A Trading Event has the goal of creating connections and transactions between PEs from both regions. It can take place in-person or online using videoconferencing, order taking and marketing, and does not require setting up a stand or booth. Trading Events organised by the Worldwide Practice Enterprise Network are held on an online platform that allows trainees to use video conferencing tools of their choice and provides them with time slots in which sellers agree to be online and conduct sales conversations and negotiations and to carry out commercial orders. These events give Practice Enterprises an opportunity to grow their international network and to create new contacts in the Western Balkans and across the EU.
Your PE wants to participate at a PEN Worldwide Online EU Trade Day. There is an opportunity to create new connections, boost international trade and create new long-term trading partnerships with PEs from across the EU.
Your task as a PE is to prepare as best as you can for the upcoming EU Trade Day.
- Prepare a participation flow chart and document where you outline the following:
- team task distribution
- preparation processes & documents
- timeline & flow of the processes (before, during and after the event)
- Select the event team that will be preparing and participating at the event
- Choose if you participate as a visitor or an exhibitor
- Create an event preparation working document with a flow chart (you can for example use templates on Canva), or you can use an event or project management platform such as Trello or another of your choice (here you can manage tasks and distribution)
- If you participate as an exhibitor, ensure you have enough staff for both the selling and buying processes
- Divide the preparations to pitch your product portfolio, including the elements of the selling process
- Review participating PEs (if available) and prepare the following:
- Vocabulary and language – learn about their business culture
- Practise possible interactions and scenarios with your teammates
- Look at the product portfolio and at what could be interesting for international customers
- Look back at your participation and take away some lessons learned and use these to improve for future events
- Close and follow-up on any unfinished matters (outstanding invoices, orders or requests)
Knowledge (being aware)
- Cross-cultural EU business norms
- different digital tools
- event planning elements
- event stages – before, during and after
Skills (being able)
- Teamwork
- Event planning preparation
- Digital skills (using video conferencing platform & setting up an exhibitor or visitor account)
- Carry out commercial processes
- Foreign language competences
- EU cultural and business etiquette awareness
- Learning by doing – follow-up & evaluation of event
Attitudes (appreciate to perform)
- Effective cultural and linguistic communication
- Handle stress and unpredictable situations
- Take on new challenges
- EU language and cultural competences
Preparation and participation at an EU Online Trade Day puts your preparation, teamwork, digital skills, negotiation, business culture and language skills to the test.
You can experience different languages, cultures and business etiquettes, all while building your commercial knowledge. The best way to become skilled and good at participating and exhibiting at online Trade Days is actually trying it first and then taking some valuable takeaways from it. There is no better way of learning about events than actually participating. Start with small steps and participate as a visitor. Learning by doing is the key when it comes to online events especially and you will use many of the digital skills that you learn in your future career in the real business world.
- Did you find it easy to distribute the roles and prepare for the event?
- What were some of the challenges that you faced during the event?
- After the event, did you find some things you could improve for next time?