A training was recently held in Sumy for women in business, entitled ‘Keys to Financial Management’, organised by the Business Support Centre of Sumy, with EBRD support under the EU4Business initiative funded by the European Union.
The course is specifically designed for female entrepreneurs, and consisted of two training sessions, with a break between them, so that participants have time to apply in practice the knowledge gained during the first session and prepare questions for the second one.
The training was attended by 12 business women from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, coming from a wide range variety of sectors, including the cultivation, processing and export of coriander, mustard, and cold pressed mustard oil (Sumy), the production of acrylic bathtubs and equipment for hydrotherapy (Kyiv), outdoor advertising services, advertising-souvenir production, printing, organization of holidays (Sumy), the beauty industry (Sumy), a network of children's polyclinics that provide pediatrician consultations (Kharkiv), restaurant business (Sumy), manufacture of flexible packaging for the food industry (Sumy), flower shop (Sumy).
The course was interactive, and included practical exercises and real examples. During four days of training the participants considered in detail the following issues:
• How to understand from financial reporting what is actually happening with your business?
• What to do to make your profit bigger and bigger?
• How to compile and execute a plan?
• How to identify risks? How to minimize them?
• How to develop a financial management system?
• How to choose the source of business financing?
• What key skills are needed to negotiate with banks, venture companies and business angels?
The Sumy Business Support Centre is part of the EU-funded Network of Business Support Centres, which aims to improve the competitiveness and bankability of Ukrainian SMEs through the provision of business advice and capacity building. It also supports BSOs in 15 regions of Ukraine in setting up a network of EU4Business Business Support Centres (BSCs). At least 30,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs benefit from the project.