The ScaleUPgrade programme is designed for scale-up enterprises from the portfolio of the Slovene Enterprise Fund and all other Slovene scale-up enterprises, proven to be successful, internationally competitive and penetrating, that are hiring quickly and developing new competencies as well as creating new technologies and products.
Scale-ups are enterprises that have 10 or more employees, an annual turnover of at least 1 million EUR and are in a phase of rapid international growth and expansion.
Based on the work to-date with scale-up enterprises and identifying their weak points, the program mainly addresses the following topics:
- marketing promotional skills and solutions – international sales and marketing,
- skills and solutions for managing rapid growth – leadership, structure and controlling,
- skills and solutions for attracting domestic and foreign talents and their development.
The program consists of a conference and informal meetings.
ScaleUPgrade conference
The ScaleUPgrade conference is the central annual conference for scale-up enterprises. In addition to the exchange of challenges, solutions and examples of best practice by the heads of the individual divisions, the conference is also attended by internationally renowned personalities who lead technologically ground-breaking enterprises.
The next ScaleUPgrade conference offers the following:
- exchange of good practice examples of chief technology officers (CTOs),
- exchange of examples of good practice of chief marketing officers (CMOs),
- exchange of good practice examples of chief sales officers (CSOs),
- exchange of examples of good practice of chief human resources officer (CHrOs),
- exchanges of examples of good practice of chief executive officers (CEOs).
Also the conference includes networking with representatives of scale-up enterprises, experts, investors, networking with young talents, students, engineering professors and researchers as well as a demonstration of some of the cutting-edge technologies of scale-up enterprises.
ScaleUPgrade meetup
The program also organizes smaller events or so-called meetups for groups of entrepreneurs, with the focus on the exchange of examples from their entrepreneurial practice regarding the various challenges of scale-up enterprises. With such personal knowledge transfer, managers in scale-up enterprises acquire new skills and opportunities, make new acquaintances and forge new alliances.
The two meetings, one in Ljubljana and the other in Maribor, have a similar purpose as the ScaleUPgrade conference, except that they are organized on a smaller scale and in a shorter format – each meeting lasts two hours and brings together individuals from at least 15 scale-up enterprises.
The substantive part, addressing one of ScaleUp’s key challenges:
- international sales and marketing,
- leadership, structure and controlling,
- attracting talents and their development,
- obtaining adequate finance for growth.
Informal part, networking and socializing.
