The conference Baltic Spark gave a possibility for small enterprises to gain new experience, which is crucial in the current constantly changing business environment. Gints Miķelsons (Managing director of the business client department at Lattelecom) claims that „Despite the pessimistic macroeconomic forecasts, in the first months of 2010 one can see slightly positive trend – the number of new companies has increased. In March, there are 1000 new enterprises. Although partly this trend can be justified by the fact that some companies are just switching their legal forms in order to reduce risks, a substantial part of these young firms are completely new.”

During two days current and potential entrepreneurs got acquainted with tax and accounting environment in the Baltic States and took the opportunity to evaluate the most suitable market and legal form for their business, understood the importance of intellectual property in the international development, got acquainted with IT solutions applicable in every company and market and export intelligence. The panel discussion about the business environment and its different forms in each of the Baltic countries turned out as an interesting exchange of ideas among representatives of each of the countries and conference participants. In addition to that, it seems that everyone who attended the Delfin Vassallo’s lecture about the digital marketing will always remember his most famous quote “if you cannot be found in google, you do not exist”, and accordingly adjust one’s digital marketing strategy.

Ginta Šmite (owner and designer of brand „Purpurs – dizaina papīrlietas”): In addition to knowledge gained during seminars, I would like to note the wonderful atmosphere which encouraged participants to be open and share their ideas. The schedule of the conference with an excellent evening event let participants feel free and get acquainted with new people. By the end of the conference everyone had met several new acquaintances and potential business partners, which is exactly how things are done in JCI!”

Supporters of the conference: SIA Lattelecom, Tallink Hotel Riga, SIA GP Systems, SIA Digital Mouse, SIA Baltic Cargo, SIA 2RFinance, SIA viaPro, SIA Umbra, Eurolines Lux Express, Puķunakts.lv, Hansabuss, Sorainen, Zelmenis & Liberte, Ernst & Young, Gateway baltic, LATA, LDDK, LTRK, LBKA, SIA Lietišķās informācijas dienests, Association Līdere, Enterprise Estonia, Enterprise Lithuania, Invest Lithuania, LIAA EEN, B2Binfo, Office Manager, Buzzpodium.lv, One.lv, Nozare.lv, Delfi, Financenet

Organizers of the conference the global network JCI Latvia (Junior Chamber International) is an international non-profit organization, which connects young professionals and entrepreneurs ages between 18 and 40 in more than 100 countries with more than 200000 active members across the globe, giving them the opportunity to develop themselves, their leadership skills, social involvement and responsibility, entrepreneurship and cooperation with peers, creating positive change in the society. More information about JCI can be found: www.jci.cc

Consultants of viaPro will explain: benefits from Business management system implementation; selection process of systems, selection criteria and definition of scope; decision process related to system implementation, critical issues and financial aspects; life cycle of business management systems and related costs; best practices examples on specific industries; and business process integration logic and value.

More information: http://www.viapro.lv/EN/home

Organizers of the conference are happy about the received essays. Essays reflected great and deep ideas about the competitiveness of the country, its efficiency, product development and importance of team building. Participants emphasized that now is the time to drop the individualistic thinking – it is crucial for different specialists to form teams, thus creating synergies and increasing the competitiveness of the country worldwide.

Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global charity event that took place in more than 250 cities on March 25^th, 2010. The aim of Twestival was to highlight eight areas which are preventing some of our poorest youth around the world from going to school and getting the education they need, and to gather donations for the improvement of these areas.

Helsinki Twestival was a great event where people met offline for one night, had fun and altogether contributed to the realization of the goal.

More information: http://helsinki.twestival.com/

Unlike other companies „2R Finance” is full office service enterprise! They offer their clients to do whatever they want – repair cars, develop web pages, sell, sew etc.!

The company takes full responsibility for the accounting and documentation issues of their clients. Employees of „2R Finance” not only prepare reports for the State Revenue Service, but also take care of the documents necessary to establish a firm, as well as documents reflecting any changes in the structure of clients’ company, contracts of employment, lending contracts, warrants, rout sheets and other papers, whose absence in the documentation of the company entrepreneurs usually realize only during conflicts with different regulatory institutions.

Special offer: For the participants of the conference, who sign the agreement about accounting services of the company, “2RFinance” offers the preparation of the document package necessary for the establishment of the company!

 The motto of „Baltic Spark”: Knowledge + experience + network = successful business!

During the conference entrepreneurs will be given a great opportunity to establish new business relations via business matchmaking. Moreover, experts from different fields will share their experience and knowledge about essential topics for the development of the companies.

Specialists from „Ernst&Young Baltic” as experts in accounting practices will explain how to create equally efficient accounting system in all three Baltic States. They will also elaborate on the basic requirements and risks that should be considered in each of the countries.

Latvian Open Technology Association (LATA) will introduce the participants of the conference to IT solutions, emphasizing how small enterprises can use AP solutions, supplementing the industry specific knowledge with real life examples of other companies using AP for the exchange and storage of the information.

Lattelecom, which has become the technological partner of the conference, will consult about opportunities to reduce costs and efficiently communicate with partners abroad, offering IT solutions to both employers and employees.

Gints Miķelsons, managing director of the business client division at Lattelecom: Small and medium enterprises are those that are mostly affected by the economic turmoil, which has lead to the stagnation in this segment. It is unacceptable as small enterprises form the spine of Latvian economy. Thus, in order to stimulate the development of this segment Lattelecom has created a range of proposals and solutions to existing and new enterprises.

Conference is supported by SIA Lattelecom, Tallink Hotel Riga, SIA „GP Systems”, SIA „Digitālā Pele”, SIA „Baltic Cargo”, SIA 2RFinance, Puķunakts.lv, Sorainen, Zelmenis & Liberte, Ernst & Young, Gateway Baltic, LATA, LDDK, LTRK, LBKA, SIA Lietišķās informācijas dienests, Biedrība Līdere, Enterprise Estonia, Enterprise Lithuania, Invest Lithuania, LIAA EEN, B2Binfo, Office Manager.

BuzzPodium is a service which gives an opportunity to create effective up-to-date communication. It offers to create social media releases, which would reach diverse audience, starting from traditional media to readers of big news portals. The service is available for all kinds of enterprises and organizations.

Social media release is like a new step in the evolution of the press release as social media releases are sent to both journalists and bloggers, and published in the Internet. They can contain any kind of information the enterprises or organization considers being worth spreading: links to other resources, photos, videos etc. BuzzPodium is user friendly as the reader can immediately involve in the discussion about the enterprise via opportunities to comment and specify the information published.

One of the basic aims of social media releases is to contribute to the conversation about the published information. This conversation is present in any internet site which serves as a platform for the Exchange of opinions: YouTube, Twitter, Draugiem.lv etc.

The magazine „Office Manager” is a professional magazine for office employees with the aim to share educating, practically applicable and up-to-date information to every specialist, thus encouraging efficient operation of the enterprise in the long run.

The framework of the magazine content consists of information about human resource management, accounting, law practices, marketing technology, public relations, selling advices, interviews with experienced and wise people, as well as information about various opportunities for self-development.

LBKA is an organization, which is socially responsible for and actively involves in educating the society about innovative and academically supported management solutions. Activities of Latvian Business Consultants Association ensure that everyone can get an advice about how to efficiently manage organization’s resources. 

Priorities of LBKA for 2010 are: development of international contacts, gaining the certification for management consultants and development of informative resources. LBKA is currently working on an informative portal, which will be focused on management solutions provided by its members, popularization of training programs (publications, courses, web-seminars, videos), giving everyone an opportunity to access informative web-seminars wherever the persons is.

More information: http://www.biznesam.lv/

The winners  of the competition were Boriss Batirevs’ team with the idea „Keyboard of the 21st century”, which improves technology of entering the data via console, and Deniss Bezrukovs’ team with the idea of new generator for bicycles, which would ensure steady light during the ride.

During the conference various trainings, discussions, and expert consultations with suggestions about how to be more efficient in the Baltic market and develop one’s exporting strategy will take place. Another crucial part of the event will be business matchmaking, which will give one an opportunity to find collaboration partners abroad.

In Deniss Bezrukovs’ opinion, the most essential topic for his team is assessing the export market, as his team is interested in developing the exporting potential and gaining business contacts of business people from other countries. He claims that it is a shame to understate the export opportunities within the Baltic States, especially because of similarities in mentality and close economic relationship. Due to these factors the winning team of the innovative business plan competition is sure that „Baltic Spark” will be a nice place where to start.