West Swedish Competence Intermediary Strategic recommendations for creation of a regional competence intermediary

Abstract

The region of Västra Götaland has developed a plan for a regional development strategy, in order to strengthen growth in the western part of Sweden. One of the projects forms part of this regional development strategy is “Ökad Offertkraft”. It was initiated by the region of Västra Götaland and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with the purpose of mapping selected competences within the western part of Sweden. This competence is to be stored in a competence system and used to improve the competence that is present within created business offers from companies.The process of mapping and managing the competence system needs to be managed by an organisation, here named the Competence Intermediary (CI). The main purpose of the thesis is to formulate a strategy for the CI’s business idea based on the identified problems. In order to clarify the main purpose we have chosen to divide it into two parts; 1. To identify and describe areas of problem within the external relations 2. To identify and describe areas of problem when identifying competence. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on theories, which are drawn from the theoretical areas of stakeholder, network and competence theory. Ten depth interviews and four workshops have been conducted in order to collect the primary data. The following problems and recommendations were identified as being the most important; 1.) The most central parts of the competence system, as for example the competence profiles and detailed search functions, should be closed. This is necessary as competence from an organisation often contains sensitive information in relation to competitors. 2.) The business process of the Competence Intermediary needs to be clear and formulated. When formulating this process there are a few areas that are central. The incentives for organisations to use the services of the Competence Intermediary and their contribution to the mapping process needs to be communicated. The Competence Intermediary also needs to creat trust for its business idea so that organisations will perceive its business as serious, accept the mapping and employ its services. Related to this is the need for objective owners and managers that are represented on a regional level together with a non-profit focus. Further to this, the Competence Intermediary needs its own network for creating an awareness of its existence, gain acceptance among actors and in order to receive information of business opportunities. 3.) In the collaborations which are created a number of difficulties could arise that might lead to a failure of the collaborations purpose. Successful collaborations will result in good references and marketing of the Competence Intermediary. Therefore it has an interest in how the collaborations evolve. 4.) Competence is a complex and dynamic concept that makes it difficult to identify and map. In order to achieve success in the mapping of competence we recommend that this process should be conducted in five stages: selection of branches in the region; selection of competitive competence areas within these branches; selection of relevant organisations and competences within these competence areas; analyse in which other branches and following organisation that these competence areas could exist. On an organisational level the mapping could be done by identifying competence that is: connected with a unique business area, a unique application and related competence.