Best practice - Business enhancement through cluster promotion & internationalisation - Mrs. Neus Mèlich, Officer of Business Development Service of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries. Department of Culture and Media of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia)

1. Business Development Service
Creative Metropoles
Neus Mèlich Checa
Stockholm March 18th 2010

3. Who is our public?
Who?
• Small and mid-sized businesses/entreprises (SMEs)
• Micro businesses/entreprises
• Freelances
Sectors:
• Film and TV
• Media
• Publishing
• Music
• Performing Arts
• Visual Arts
• New Multimedia Arts

4. Business Development Service (SDE)
SDE:
A service oriented to the Catalan cultural industry:
Build on the experience acquired by ICIC
Activity started in Jannuary 2006
We’re five-years-old!
SDE’s goals:
1. Improve Catalan cultural/creative industries’ competitiveness
2. Promote innovation in their management

5. Business Development Service (SDE) Objectives
Operational objectives (goals) of the SDE:
To stimulate innovation in cultural industries
To generate new resources and maximize those already existing
To provide cultural industries with the information and tools to
be able to reach new markets
To encourage networking
To promote technological and digital transfer applied to
creative industries

6. Where SDE’s goals come from?
SWOT
(based on Handbook on the Cultural Industries of Catalonia, October 2002)
Main goals and challenges of ICIC:
• Provide a business framework in Catalonia for cultural/creative
industries (SDE)
• Connect local creative companies and professionals with
international networks. Expand cultural products market (API)
• Increase the consumption of culture (Club TR3SC)
Main goals and challenges of SDE
• Become a tool for creative business development: External
Consultancy and Manager Training
• Foster cultural exchange, cooperation services and
Information/Management training

7. SWOT
Strenghs:
1. Existence of a solid amateur scene that feeds consumption and
new professionals outlets in culture.
2. Existence of a relevant mass of SMEs and a strong traditional
gremial and associacionist culture.
3. Existence of a relevant enterpreneur culture/ability to carry out
iniatives of an entrepreneurial character, tied to innovation and
artistic creativity.

8. SWOT
Weknesses:
1. Major difficulty for positioning Catalan cultural products in the
Spanish market and for their integration into the international
market . (API & SDE’s Training)
2. Strong centralization of the main groups in Madrid (capital city).
3. Low market activity in cultural production and promotion outside
BCN area. (SDE: training around Catalonia!)
4. Severe lack of public and private financing (ADE: Refundable
Contributions, Culture Credit (loans), ICF Credit Programme)
5. Lack of life-long training in the creative industries, mostly
dominated by liberal professionals (SDE: Training)
6. Insufficient businesses strategies for networking and
cooperating (SDE: Meetings, Training, networking & API)

9. SWOT
Opportunities:
1. Creativity, vital for the business chain of added value
2. New digital techonology. The full development of digital
technology in all areas of culture must be fostered. (SDE: DM2.0,
professional training: Worshops Web and Mktg Digital)
3. Less significance given to the location of the site of productive
and creative processes.
4. Possibility of assuming a competitive position in new emerging
multimedia markets.
5. Development of cultural tourism.

10. SWOT
Threats:
1. Dependency on a few major operators IT service providers.
2. The traditional linguistic and cultural barriers are vanishing
and the large-scale promotion is very costly.
3. Loss of importance of the location of production and creation.
4. New digital techonology (SDE! : DM2.0, professional training:
Worshops Web and Mktg Digital)

11. SDE acts along two axis:
1. Information/ Training management
(In/Formació directiva)
2. Culture Consultancy (Consultoria Cultura)

12. Business Development Service (SDE) Action axis
1. Information/ Training management
Main characteristics:
• Format: conferences, workshops, debates, professional round-table
discussions, work sessions, dialogues
• Topics: innovation management, IT application, economic management,
new markets, etc.
• Offer adapted to sectorial specific needs
• Flexibility and capacity for quick response to current questions
• And it’s usually free-of-charge!

13. Information/Training management’ summary data (2009)

14. Some of our international speakers...
Charles Caldas, CEO, Merlin
Richard Gottehrer, founder
Carlos Lalinde, CEO and
and chairman, The Orchard
Copyright chief, Clipper’s Music
Shira Perlmutter, executive VP,
Global Legal Policy, IFPI
Kevin Arnold, CEO, IODA

15. Business Development Service (SDE) Action axis
1. Information/ Training management
Topics for 2010: More than 60
seminars and
•Digital Music 2.0 conferences
programmed!
•Marketing and Communication
•New Technologies
•Legal
•Management
•Internationalization Our main partner:
International
•Collaborations
Promotion Area
www.catalanarts.cat

16. 1. Information/ Training management
Digital Music 2.0 www.sdeicic.cat/dm20
clip DM2.0 http://vimeo.com/10212335
Day sessions:
• Digital Music 2.0 – SONAR-
Activity programmed as part of Sonar.
• Digital Music 2.0 - Vila-Seca Street Music Festival.
The 10 most common Web mistakes (music sector)
• Digital Music 2.0 – Vic Live Music Market
Tools for the internationalization of companies (markets and fairs)
Seminars:
• Digital Music 2.0 - (APECAT)
Analysis of the behaviour of the public in the network
Legal digital sales

17. 1. Information/ Training management
Marketing and Communication
Workshops:
•Marketing and Communication Strategies for Cultural Companies
10 sessions
•Web and Digital Marketing for Cultural Companies
4 sessions
•Presentation and communication skills for negotiation
4 sessions
Conferences:
•Being news; by accident or strategy? Know the means for good
management of cultural communication
Sessions programmed in Barcelona, Vic, Girona, Lleida i Tarragona.

18. 1. Information/ Training management
New Technologies
Workshops:
•The 10 most common mistakes in communication by Internet:
– Publishing sector
– Performing arts sector
– Visual arts sector
– Audiovisual sector
Dialogues of the SDE:
• Applications for mobile telephones and small video games, applied to
the promotion of cultural industries
• Internet as an information channel

19. 1. Information/ Training management
Legal
Seminars:
•The Law on information society and electronic trade services
(LSSICE)
•Resolution of conflicts
•Legality and new technologies in the publishing sector
•Contracting in employment and commercial areas: in the areas
of music, performing arts, and the audiovisual field
•The right to honour, intimacy and image in the audiovisual field
and the world of publishing
Dialogues of the SDE:
•Social networks - pros and cons
•Copyright
•Large brands and piracy. How can they defend themselves?
•How to control your corporate reputation in Internet
•Advertising: purchase ideas to sell products

20. 1. Information/ Training management
Business management
Workshops:
•Participative strategic plan 4 sessions
•Programme of SDE activities and services for 2010
•Accounting as a management tool
•How to focus banking negotiation
Day session:
•R+D+I in cultural companies
Dialogues of the SDE:
•How to carry out a market study in an industry of prototypes
•Cooperate to advance: clusters, sectorial alliances

21. 1. Information/ Training management
Internationalization
• II Day sessions on street arts (Fira Tàrrega Street Festival). Street
Arts and Internationalization (I and II)
• Day sessions on internationalization for cultural companies
In collaboration with the Area of International Promotion of the
ICIC www.catalanarts.cat
www.catalanarts.cat

22. Business Development Service (SDE) Action axis
2. Culture Consultancy
Main characteristics:
• Consultancy service (upon demand) offered to Catalan cultural companies
• Co-financed service (ICIC – companies)
• Characteristics of the consultancy:
– Two kinds:
• Basic
• Specific. Most common typologies: commercial plans, strategic
development, improvement of internal procedures, marketing,
digital processes and new technologies, ...
– Consultancy carried out by external consultants who have accredited
their technical solvency

23. 2. Culture Consultancy
Main goals:
To improve the professionalization and competitiveness of the
Catalan cultural business fabric.
To provide cultural companies the opportunity to carry out a process
of reflection with advice from an external consultant.
To carry out specific work for the development and implementation of
conclusions and recommendations in a functional company environment
and which may be derived from the prior process of reflection.

24. 2. Culture Consultancy
Summary of data from previous offerings (2006-2009)
• Total budget assigned: 285,582.49 €
– Total applications resolved positively: 204
• Total applications in the area of basic consultation: 135
– Total budget assigned: 59,200 €
• Total applications in the area of specific consultation: 71
– Total budget assigned: 226,382.49 €

25. Summary of data from previous offerings (2009)

26. Last news!
• New Website: • Web 2.0 and SDE:
www.sdeicic.cat Vimeo
http://vimeo.com/channels/sdei
www.sdeicic.cat
cic
http://vimeo.com/channels/sdeicic
Twitter
http://twitter.com/sdeicic
http://twitter.com/sdeicic
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/serveidesenvolupam
entempresarial#!/?ref=home

27. Tack så mycket!
Thanks a lot!!
Moltes gràcies!!
Muchas gracias!!
Contact and more information:
Neus Mèlich
nmelich@gencat.cat
sdeicic.cultura@gencat.cat
www.sdeicic.cat
www.gencat.cat/cultura/icic/sde