Berlin-Transfer

Initial situation

Over 90% of Europe’s businesses are small to medium-sized enterprises (SME). Their talent for innovation—including their capacity to develop new products, open new markets, introduce new procedures, test new processes, and much more—is decisive for the economic and social development of all European countries. However SMEs often aren’t as flexible as they need to be and the introduction of new ideas, procedures and software in the field of knowledge management are hardly the order of the day—usually due to a lack of financial resources or know-how.

Berlin’s SMEs are no exception. In the interest of strengthening Berlin’s small and medium-sized business and securing long-term employment prospects for their workers—thus stabilizing and developing Berlin as an attractive site for businesses—the Berlin Senate is supporting the introduction of knowledge management solutions in Berlin SMEs through the two-year pilot project “BerLearner manage knowledge through business processes.” The project runs from 2009–2011, is managed by C&Q Bildungszentrum Haberhauffe GmbH and is made possible by the support of the Berlin Senate Department of Integration, Labour and Social Issues and the European Social Fund (ESF).

BerLearner manage knowledge through business processes

The project, launched in April 2009, is based on three antecedent C&Q Bildungszentrum projects on implementing knowledge management systems in SMEs. In 2005, the project Berlin will es wissen (Berlin wants to know) focused on the use of online collaboration methods, creating interactive websites using content management systems, and creating and updating wikis. The 2006 project BerLearner KMU wollen Wissen (Berlin SMEs want knowledge) focused on the analysis and reorientation of information and knowledge processes and the use of semantic document management systems, and the 2007 project, eApo-IT-Learner, concentrated on work-process oriented e-learning, supported by semantic document management.