Regional business service as a crisis tool beyond COVID-19

By project SUPER

Published on 05 October 2022

Denmark

Sjælland

About this good practice

The Regional Business Support (RBS) was redesigned in 2017 to be the junction that creates cohesion in different support efforts as the local contact for businesses. The RBS remains state funded. Its main role is to provide guidance with growth and competitiveness. This is done through a process, where the RBS, in collaboration with the company, creates an overview of the business and identifies specific focus areas that can strengthen operations and development. They provide companies with information, professional sparring and connections within its network.
From the spring of 2020, the RBS established corona-task forces. Through the task forces they assisted with information on state compensation schemes whilst continuing the usual service on business development, toned by the crisis. Businesses could also contact them through a hotline for urgent needs and attend webinars on pandemic related issues. From 2021, the guidance of RBS developed away from actual ‘crisis assistance’ and focused on how companies could adapt business models to fit the post-corona period.
Since 2007, the RBS has offered the free counselling scheme “Early Warning”, that helps businesses with bankruptcy or decreasing revenues. Affiliated consultants support companies with turning their negative development around. There was a high demand for this tool during the pandemic period.

Resources needed

21.746.890 euros are yearly funded towards RBS (2019) nationally by state fund . No additional funds were transferred to the RBS during the pandemic, though they were expected to deliver pandemic related guidance. Each RBS in Denmark has 30-50 consultants employed.

Evidence of success

In the period of the pandemic, there was an increased demand for business guidance. The six regional business services provided specialized guidance to 4611 companies in 2020 and 4790 in 2021.
In 2022 98% of companies were satisfied with the received support from RBS, rated the competences of consultants at 83% and expected an effect of 77% of the services. Overall, the support of RBS is therefore rated very positively amongst affiliated companies.

Potential for learning or transfer

The RBS existed prior to the pandemic as an integrated junction in the Danish business support system. If their crisis taskforce should be transferred to another country, it would make sense to empower an already established actor in the national business support system. Preparing a support structure before a crisis develops paves the way for existing relationships with companies and tools for guidance. This has been fruitful for the effectiveness of Danish pandemic support. An additional learning outcome was the collection of all crisis information with one actor, which made it easier for companies to navigate in the available crisis schemes.