Year: <span>2019</span>

Often, a business can be restructured and expanded by buying another business. Nowadays there is a market for the sale and purchase of companies in Albania, and small and medium businesses are very exposed to this phenomenon. This process is in the focus of this topic, with strategic alternatives like mergers and acquisitions, as well as handing of business over to the next family generation.

Issues of discussion are: techniques of financial assessment of a business, assessment by means of development method, evaluation of business market power, and assessment of ‘off-balance sheet’ factors, related to legal business problems that will be sold. In the end of session, the participants should realize that a business has a value which can be estimated, after that it is the market deciding the real value.

Sixteen participation hackers gathered in Tirana on January 24, to discuss issues of concern to youth in Albania and Serbia as part of the HPiB Project funded by RYCO. The participants worked online through the digital mobility platform to prepare the first drafts of their policy hacks and had the chance to work together all Thursday on issues regarding the funding of higher education in Albania and Serbia, digital security for teens, decrease of discrimination for Roma pupils in Novi Pazar, Serbia, and Tirana, Albania, and the need for increase number of psychologists n state-run high schools in Tirana.

This was the final event of our project Hacking Participation in the Balkans – Innovative ways of empowering Balkans youth to impact policy-making processes – (HPiB) is a project financed by Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) in the first call for proposals “A better region starts with youth” under priority area 2: Active participation and social inclusion.

For testimonials from hackers check out our video of documenting the hackathon and entire project experience.

Topic 2: Evaluation of the economic and financial position of a business in the market.
Companies face many difficulties dealing with the frequent changes in today’s economy, and company restructuring can be a short and long-term answer to maintaining company viability. With a challenging economy, in our geographical region one of the most common reasons for possible restructuring is the difficulty of keeping sales results above a financial break-even point. An additional key reason to review a business reorganization is the preparation for major growth involving new products or services. In some other cases, legal and financial reasons might dictate a restructuring alternative.
The main goal of this session is to acknowledge the participants with the indicators for determining the position of a business in the market. The most important part of restructuring lies in defining the problem and after that in postulating the solution. Regardless of the type of businesses chosen, there are ways of evaluating the competition, the factors that determine the dynamics of a particular market, the impact of regional development policies, and so on. The session will end up with the SWOT analysis for a company and the advantages it can provide. It is a simple but useful framework for analyzing an organization’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that it is facing. It helps the company/ business to focus on the strengths and try to minimize threats. From the other side, it highlights the opportunities available and how to take the greatest possible advantage of them for the business. In any case, it should be emphasized that such analysis can help the company identify and understand key issues affecting the business, but it does not necessarily offer solutions.

Topic 3. Internet and Business- Business forms on the Internet.
This session provides the participant with knowledge about new business forms in the internet. Internet impact on society is now making economic, social, and political changes around the globe. It’s obvious a huge number of users, communities, cultures are using the internet in their daily life. It is very difficult to imagine how any business could operate during this time without the use of the internet. The development of the internet has significantly altered the day to day operations of a business; including how they communicate with each other and their audience. Information can be easily transmitted to any destination in a matter of seconds. The internet has become an essential tool for marketing and advertising. A business can present itself to customers with the use of a website or online advertisements. Many businesses now use the internet as a means of making customers aware of their current promotions. This can be very beneficial to businesses that are targeting a younger audience.

The huge development of this field enables vast new opportunities for investment and entrepreneurship even in our target region. Participants learn what are the necessary knowledge to be involved in such business, what are the legal forms of this business, how an activity is carried out in this type of business, and what is the role of banks in this process. A special place will take the discussion of matching the supply and demand for products and services that are offered in completely different distribution channels. Case “Grupon”.

Increased competition, technological changes and government regulation are among the many challenges business owners face in today’s competitive world. The business model that worked in the initial phase of operation may no longer be profitable five years after start-up. Slow or no growth, market downturns, an inefficient structure and accumulating debt are a few of the signals that company restructuring may be in its best interest. Such situation is encountered in the regions this project intends to be implemented, consequently encourages us to suggest some ways of dealing with the problem.

In order to successfully realize this step, we anticipate a promotional campaign to recognize the Elbasan women’s business community with the expected results of this project. Providing information and drawing the attention of business women on the restructuring process is the first move towards a successful set of actions to the benefit of businesses and the whole community.

In order to reach a more realistic business plan for the expansion and restructuring of selected businesses, 6 seminar / training sessions will intend to enable the executives to evaluate the current situation of their business/ company, their restructuring opportunities and to increase their management skills.

We started with the topic “Evaluation of the economic and financial position of a business in the market”

Companies face many difficulties dealing with the frequent changes in today’s economy, and company restructuring can be a short and long-term answer to maintaining company viability. With a challenging economy, in our geographical region one of the most common reasons for possible restructuring is the difficulty of keeping sales results above a financial break-even point. An additional key reason to review a business reorganization is the preparation for major growth involving new products or services. In some other cases, legal and financial reasons might dictate a restructuring alternative.

The main goal of this session is to acknowledge the participants with the indicators for determining the position of a business in the market. The most important part of restructuring lies in defining the problem and after that in postulating the solution. Regardless of the type of businesses chosen, there are ways of evaluating the competition, the factors that determine the dynamics of a particular market, the impact of regional development policies, and so on. The session will end up with the SWOT analysis for a company and the advantages it can provide. It is a simple but useful framework for analyzing an organization’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that it is facing. It helps the company/ business to focus on the strengths and try to minimize threats.  From the other side, it highlights the opportunities available and how to take the greatest possible advantage of them for the business.  In any case, it should be emphasized that such analysis can help the company identify and understand key issues affecting the business, but it does not necessarily offer solutions.

Every business realizes its activity on a certain surface and needs a certain space, which is generally defined based on different criteria according to types businesses. In this topic, the participants learn how to classify the factors influencing this decision, how to calculate the necessary surface for some types of business, how the place relates to the functional costs, how it affects the sales promotion, and how much it affects the potential customers. Finally, the commercial area performance is analyzed for businesses that realize retail or wholesale merchandise sales for consumption products. The elements needed to evaluate the profitability of the shelf and the promotion at the selling place are also described and discussed. The above relates mainly to those activities that offer products, but also services where some material output is incorporated.

Although actually online activities are becoming highly widespread, still the place/ location is strictly related to most of the core of the activity in which generally women are involved. The point to consider is the fact that the intention of this project is to stimulate the engagement of women whose education level and information technology background and experience is relatively limited.

They trained the women on general information about regulatory issues while carrying out a business activity is a must for every business activity. This session provided participants with judicial and fiscal information, helpful to recognize the actions they need to make when deciding on the type of the activity they will perform.

They learn to determine what legal form would be most suitable for their company, forms of partnership, if required, and the costs of its establishment. At the same time, the background is provided for the initial elements of building the organizational chart of company and especially basic methodology in order to determine the requirements for employees, tools and skills. Further on, this topic serves for learning how to estimate the cost of business inside and outside the production boundaries. It informs about the business tax obligations, workplace security obligations, guarantees for environmental compliance, and the personal obligations that the entrepreneur has in a business, etc. An important part of this topic is how to find foreign partners or local investors who believe in the suggested business idea of the participant.

The HPiB team met in Tirana on December 18 and 19 for the second workshop on “Structuring opinions for qualitative participation”. The team was enriched with the participation of five Albanian young people, taking the number of participants to 17.

For the first stop of the event, participants met with Mr. Shpat Kolgega, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth, Mrs. Dafina Peci, Executive Director, National Youth Congress, and Mr. Bledar Taho, General Director, Institute of Romani Culture in Albania. The meetings were inspirational for the young people who had the opportunity to learn more from the experiences of the guests in achieving participation.

The second stop, at the Professional College of Tirana, was focused on lectures delivered by the mentors, Orkidea and Dusan, on tools that allow for qualitative participation, and failures of technology. Participants had the opportunity to work in teams and develop the topics they will work for at the hackathon.

Four teams were created and the chosen topics cover local and regional policy issues, on which our the team members will work through the digital platform and will be finalized during the hackathon in January 2019.