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Firstly, there is plenty of information about European projects and a company needs to make great efforts, so as to get a good idea. Larger companies, which can afford to have one or two employees to do the work, can cope with it, but for smaller companies, this is not an option. If the bank has specialists in these programmes, their role is to help clients by providing them with information about the possibilities. So, when a client comes with an idea of a particular business, the bank can say "why don't you use the Competitiveness programme" or "do you know that state fund Agriculture will start such a measure in six months", i.e. we can help even at this stage. Another option is to use consulting companies. Most of them provide initial information free of charge. My advise to companies is to prepare, to be proactive when they look for possibilities and to look for them persistently with a clear idea of the way they want to develop their business in the next 1-2 years. So, if now they try to imagine what will happen next year, they can see what the programmes will fund and if any activity fits them. It is very important that the business needs to correspond to the programmes and that the application is not submitted only for the idea of applying. Otherwise, the projects will not be based on the business. Of course, it is important to plan the application adequately. In order to get a quality and successful project, it should be written well, irrespective of the fact whether it has been written by the company or by a consultant. However, taking into account the enormous bureaucracy, clients are not advised to write their projects on their own, unless they have an experienced employee and intend to spend time on it. When companies start considering such a decision, it is good to decide if it is worth to do this. For this purpose, they should be aware how long it will take them, what additional efforts they will have to make, what the risks are and how much the whole process will cost them. Companies need to provide funds for consultants to write and manage the project, as well as to provide human resources, i.e. staff of the company to be responsible for the project. Apart from that it should be taken into account that delays might occur at different stages, as well as that the investment might be postponed. And last but not least, it should be born in mind that in most cases companies fail to fully implement their project in order to receive the entire 1
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