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Are you digital and IT ready?
Effective e-leadership for high performance SMEs
Friday 5 June 2015 from 09:30 to 17:00
Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU, UK
(Churchill and Monnet Room)
Need for e-leadership
e-Leadership is of crucial importance to companies, especially SMEs, start-ups and industry, as it allows
them to excel at their business operation. The skills required for effective e-leadership are seen as those
that enable talented information and communication technologies (ICT) professionals to lead qualified ICT
and other staff towards identifying and designing business models and exploiting key innovation
opportunities. e-Leadership success is defined as making best use of developments in ICT and delivering
value to the organisation. There is an increasing demand throughout European industry to improve the
quality of e-leadership, covering organisation leadership in ICT innovation to deliver business value.
Research has confirmed a significant shortage of e-leadership skills across Europe; this represents a call for
action.
The European Commission e-Leadership initiative, started in 2013, has focused on the leadership needs of
top decision-makers and professional leaders at larger enterprises. These leaders oversee portfolios of both
well-defined and emergent innovation opportunities. Successful design and implementation requires
developing and engaging highly qualified staff to achieve the target value. With the further initiative on eleadership skills for SMEs, which was started in 2014, the Commission is now targeting SMEs and start-ups.
Focus of initiative
The European Commission initiative found that closing the e-leadership skills gap requires a range of
educational ecosystem actions. In particular, it needs strong collaboration of demand and supply
stakeholders to create new educational offers. Pilot work shows that this leads to innovative and relevant
content for e-leadership programmes and courses.
This event is one of five regional events organised by the European Commission across Europe. It is
organised by Henley Business School together with the Henley Accelerator Programme.
Event objectives
The objectives of the event are to:
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Inform SMEs and start-ups about newly developed training and higher and executive education
offers on e-leadership, supporting them in exploiting innovation opportunities emerging through
developments in ICT and in delivering value to their organisation.
Communicate the lessons learnt from these developments and from the findings of the first
cohorts of different types of courses, in different countries, to all stakeholders keen to promote
innovation through e-Leadership.
Inform about the European higher and executive education landscape and the further training
offers in the areas of e-leadership and digital entrepreneurship.
Demonstrate to institutions, universities and business schools the e-leadership courses that have
been developed and piloted in different contexts and countries, for different target groups, to
convey lessons learnt and to guide institutions to develop e-leadership programmes.
Encourage employers – especially SMEs and start-ups – to make use of e-leadership programme
and course offerings and to team up with education and training institutions to develop these in
line with their needs.
Inform policy-makers and government representatives interested in promoting digital innovation
and developing appropriate national policies and initiatives, of different types and in different
policy areas, about already existing, successful national policies and initiatives that may inspire their
own work.
Target groups
This event is targeted at: innovative employers especially from SMEs and start-ups, entrepreneurs, current
and aspiring e-leaders, professional associations, universities and business schools, as well as (especially the
morning session) policy-makers interested in promoting digital innovation and developing appropriate
national policies and initiatives of different types and in different policy areas.
Interested parties can register for one or both of the sessions listed below:
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Morning session: e-leadership policy and education and training landscape – mainly addressed to policy
makers and those active and preparing decisions at policy and multi-stakeholder partnership level.
Practical afternoon session: e-leadership for SMEs: success stories, training courses, programmes,
MOOCs – addressed to representatives from SME and start-ups, and from higher and executive education
and general training institutions.
Attendance fee
There is no charge to attend the event. Anyone expressing an interest will be sent a link to the outputs of
this event.
Due to the need to balance the stakeholder groups, final acceptance of participation is by personal
invitation. Acceptance will be confirmed within two weeks of registration. Please register your interest at
the following website: www.eskills-lead.eu.
Agenda
MORNING SESSION:
e-Leadership policy and education and training landscape
Chairperson: Kecheng Liu, Henley Business School, UK
9:30–10:15
Registration and refreshments
Welcome and introduction
10:15–10:30
10:30–11:00
Welcome from The Earl of Erroll and Introduction by Kecheng Liu
The European e-Leadership Skills initiative: introduction and overview
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European Commission policies and initiatives on e-leadership
André Richier, European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry (Belgium)
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e-Leadership for SMEs and entrepreneurs: a European initiative
Werner B Korte, Director, Empirica (Germany)
11:00–11:15
e-Leadership and digital entrepreneurship: national policies, initiatives
Overview and benchmarking of national e-leadership policies and initiatives in UK
(tbc)
11:15–11:30
Initiative of e-skills/e-leadership/education in the UK
Nigel Payne, On behalf of Tech Partnership
11:30–11:45
Small Business Digital Capability programme to support SMEs improve
their digital skills
Sally Pomfrey, Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, HM Government
11:45 – 12:00
e-Leadership in SME: an insight from China
Jianzheng Yang, Director, Legislation and Policy Committee, Chinese Commission of E-Commerce
12:00–12:15
Summary and Reflection
Facilitated by Andrew Godley, Henley Business School, UK
12:15–13:15
LUNCH BREAK
AFTERNOON SESSION:
e-Leadership for SMEs: success stories, training courses, programmes, MOOCs
Chairperson: Kecheng Liu, Henley Business School, UK
13:15–13:30
Welcome and introduction
Welcome from The Earl of Erroll and Introduction by Kecheng Liu
13:30–13:45
Innovation through e-leadership: skills requirements in SMEs and
Start-ups
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Results from interviews and a European survey of decision makers
Case studies of successful SMEs
Kecheng Liu, Dr Maksim Belitski and Dr Weizi Li, Henley Business School, UK
13:45–14:30
Innovation through e-leadership: Successful SMEs – case studies
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Developing ICT capabilities and strategy
Chris Tingley, Chief Technology Officer, Conjure
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Driving engagement and innovation in E-Leadership via collaborative technology
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Business Intelligence through E-leadership
Simon Walker, Chief Strategy Officer of Foundation-SP
Maarten Goossens, Senior Manager, Urban Science International (US)
14:30–14:45
Enhance your IT strategies- digital leader for the future
Topic tbc
Liz Bacon, BCS Immediate Past President
Adam Thilthorpe, BCS Director of Professionalism
14:45-15:00
e-Leadership higher and executive education and general training
landscape in UK
Digital learning to support leaders and managers - an example from a professional
body
Ian Myson, Charted management Institute (CMI)
15:00–16:00
e-Leadership training courses and programmes for SMEs
and start-ups
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Henley High Growth Accelerator-Vital Six: Leveraging the SME’s potential
Ed Cooper, Vital Six
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The important of leadership to digital success – based on case studies and our
barometer data
Rob Mettler, Director of Digital Business PA Consulting
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Multinational company training for SMEs e-leadership
Jason Jingsong Zhao and John Morrison, Huawei Technologies (UK) Co. Ltd
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The secret to innovative e-Leadership
Adam Clark, CEO & Co-founder, ConnectTVT Accelerator Innovation Hub
16:00–16:15
Reflection, Conclusions and Future Directions
16:15–17:00
Networking with refreshments
Registration
Please register your interest at the following website: www.eskills-lead.eu
This event is targeted at innovative employers, current and aspiring e-leaders, professional associations,
universities and business schools, as well as policy-makers interested in promoting digital innovation. Due
to the need to balance the stakeholder groups, final acceptance of participation is by personal invitation.
Acceptance will be confirmed within two weeks of registration. There is no charge to attend the event.
Anyone expressing an interest will be sent a link to the outputs of this event.
Further information
e-Leadership flyer
You can obtain background research on the e-leadership topic by accessing a flyer at the following web site:
http://eskills-guide.eu/documents/
Event Secretariat:
Prof. Kecheng Liu: k.liu@henley.ac.uk
Prof. Andrew Godley: a.c.godley@henley.ac.uk
Dr. Maksim Belitski: m.belitski@reading.ac.uk
Dr. Weizi Li: weizi.li@henley.ac.uk
Lauren Read: l.read@henley.ac.uk
empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH
Oxfordstr. 2
53111 Bonn
Germany
T: +49-228-98530-0
F: +49-228-98530-12
E: lead@empirica.com
W: http://www.eskills-lead.eu
Practical information
Event language
The conference language will be English
Venue
Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU, UK (Churchill and Monnet Room)
About ‘e-Leadership Skills for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises’
This event is organised as part of the service contract ‘e-Leadership Skills for Small and Medium Sized
Enterprises’, launched by the European Commission Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry (DG
ENTR). The initiative is developing targeted actions for start-ups and fast-growing SMEs to provide them
with relevant, transnationally recognised e-leadership skills and qualifications for entrepreneurs, managers
and advanced ICT users.
The initiative is contributing to the ‘Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs’, to the Commission’s communication
entitled ‘Towards a Job-rich Recovery’, and to the follow-up of the Commission’s communication on ‘eSkills for the 21st Century’, which presents a long-term EU e-skills agenda and is entitled ‘The Digital
Agenda for Europe’.
The main focus of this service contract is on e-leadership in SMEs and start-up firms. e-Leadership has been
defined as the accomplishment of a goal that relies on ICT through the direction of human resources and
uses of ICT. This type of leadership is thus distinguished by the type of goal that needs to be accomplished
and by the type of resources a leader must coordinate and align: both the goal and the resources involve
using ICT.
e-Leadership skills definition
e-Leadership skills refers to the skills which an individual in the modern economy requires to initiate and
achieve innovation utilising ICT:
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Business savvy: Innovate business and operating models, delivering value to their organisations.
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ICT savvy: Envision and drive change for business performance, exploiting digital trends as
innovation opportunities.
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Strategic management capability: Lead inter‐disciplinary staff, and influence stakeholders across
boundaries (functional, geographical).
ICT savvy
Envision and drive
change for business
performance, exploiting
digital trends as
innovation opportunities
Business savvy
Innovate business
and operating
models, delivering
value to their
organisations
Strategic
management
Lead inter‐disciplinary
staff, and influence
stakeholders across
boundaries
(functional,
geographical)
For more information please visit: www.eskills-lead.eu and www.eskills-guide.eu