Our vocational training services comprises of formal and informal technical training, skills development and entrepreneurship development. Our approach includes:

• Training needs assessment studies and planning,
• Design of training systems,
• Curricula development,
• Teachers training,
• Planning of training facilities,
• Procurement of training material and courses,
• Integration of entrepreneurship development elements in to vocational training.

We strongly believe that vocational training has to be purely needs oriented in order to be able to recover the very high costs for technical vocational training. The rehabilitation of existing training facilities as well as the design of new technical training structures needs to follow this principle as well. Therefore, we prefer tailor-made training systems, designed according to the specific needs of a region or sector. Additionally we also provide individual training courses for public institutions and companies including:

• individual management training and coaching,
• technical and marketing seminars,
• workshops and exposure programs.

Orientation towards the requirements of international markets requires first and foremost awareness and insight into the necessity of change. Very often we design exposure programs into our institution building projects at the very beginning, in order to prepare the ground for change. For key personnel we develop tailor-made exposure visits or internship programs in Europe or neighbouring, further industrialised, countries. For in-house training in companies and government agencies we use our own Export Market Awareness Guide, consisting of 20 modules which can be flexibly applied depending on the audience and set of problems. Very successful are observation programs combining visits to trade fairs with factory visits and shop audits. They conclude usually with a marketing seminar in which the experience gained during the program is related to the situation of the participants’ organisation and recommendations for marketing actions are developed.

In the training program on international marketing for smaller countries we stress market segmentation and the identification of niche markets. For large-scale exporters we emphasize productivity and supply logistics. In addition, the subject of global sourcing, i.e. international subcontracting, is explained and the requirements discussed in workshops.

Another subject is productivity and quality. Awareness programs provide information on productivity and quality standards of international buyers that have to be met. Participants are also acquainted with analytical tools such as pareto analysis, cluster diagram, and brainstorming techniques. Such awareness and training programs are ideally designed and conducted with a sectoral reference, i.e. taking examples of products or markets of client companies and organizations.