This year, from 11 to 15 November, the Entrepreneur Experience Days were held as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week, with the aim of encouraging entrepreneurs to share their experience and knowledge for business development. Over the five Entrepreneur Experience Days, organised annually in Latvia since 2017, the event attracted over 300 companies as participants. The Entrepreneur Experience Days are held by Swedbank in partnership with the Confederation of Employers of Latvia (LDDK), the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LTRK), and the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA).
This year, the initiative had participants from various industries - finance and insurance, IT and communication, wholesale and retail, production, manufacturing, real estate, etc. The participating companies came from different cities, towns and regions of Latvia – Riga, Mārupe, Iecava, as well as the municipalities of Jelgava, Talsi and Stopiņi.
The experience sharers that kindly welcomed entrepreneurs to their premises this year were represented by Latvijas Mobilais Telefons, a Draugiem Group company DeskTime, Lursoft IT, Patent Board, Coca-Cola HBC Latvia, Junior Achievement Latvia, Balticovo, Omniva and others.
This year's experience learners included companies like Cobalt, DHL EXPRESS Latvia, Riga Technical University, Latvenergo, JYSK Baltics, Cēsu Alus, airBaltic, the Ministry of Education and Science, Stockmann, Brain Games, Getliņi EKO, Go3, Mastercard and others.
"LMT is an innovation leader in Latvia, and we work hard to ensure that the people of Latvia enjoy the latest advances in technology, as well as helping businesses go digital and become more productive by implementing solutions that help make manual processes automated and better managed. As we serve the majority of businesses in Latvia, we have accumulated a lot of experience that we are ready to share. At the event, we focused on small businesses, telling them what to do to make every day productive and result-oriented, as well as giving recommendations on how to easily and quickly improve their company image and thus stand out from the competition," says Renārs Omutovs, Head of Small and Medium Business Services at LMT.
This year DHL Express Latvia took on the role of an experience learner. "The Entrepreneur Experience Days are a great opportunity to share knowledge, which promotes openness and collaboration between businesses. They are stories of inspiration to draw ideas from, as well as examples of good practice, innovation and solutions. I also really appreciate the informal discussions after the presentations, when you have the opportunity to ask questions and meet professionals in the field," says Ineta Kalinkeviča, HR Director at DHL Express Latvia.
"We are proud that for the seventh year of the Entrepreneur Experience Days initiative we have the opportunity to bring together entrepreneurs from different sectors, representatives of organisations and experts not only to share experiences, gain new ideas, insights and solutions, but also to build new contacts and cooperation. This year, more than 450 participants took part in the Entrepreneur Experience Days, showing that entrepreneurs' fear of sharing is diminishing, while their belief that experience is a company's most valuable asset and key driver of growth is growing year by year. The Entrepreneur Experience Days have evolved into an important platform where entrepreneurs can share both successes and failures, learn and get inspiration for further growth," says Jevgenijs Ivanovs, Head of Corporate Customer Division at Swedbank.
Swedbank, together with its partners LDDK and LTRK, also organised a conference for entrepreneurs, inviting representatives of various fields and companies to share their stories about the current challenges and topical issues in business. Recordings of videos covering the conference topics can be watched on the Swedbank blog under “Pieredze” (Experience) and Swedbank Latvia YouTube channel.
About the Global Entrepreneurship Week
The Global Entrepreneurship Week is an international movement with events taking place in over 180 countries – tens of thousands of events, activities and competitions that inspire millions of people to explore their potential as entrepreneurs, while networking and fostering collaboration. Launched in 2008 with national campaigns in 77 countries, it has expanded to engage around 10 million participants. Swedbank is the organiser of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Latvia and for the seventh year in a row invites entrepreneurs to share their experience. Find out more about the initiative and subscribe to the news at: www.pieredzesdienas.lv.