Internationalisation is the expansion of a firms operations to foreign markets and includes not only import and export but also foreign direct investments and international cooperation. Today’s globalising economy has resulted in a growing number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) undertaking international activities. Internationalisation has been shown to be very beneficial for firms. Cross-border activities are an important means through which SMEs are able to create value, generate growth and access new knowledge and technologies. A strong relation has also been found between innovation and internationalisation: innovation may both be necessary to enter foreign markets as well as be a consequence of a firm’s foreign market activities. In addition to value creation at the firmlevel, crossborder entrepreneurship is assumed to create wealth at an economy wide level. With so many evident benefits to internationalisation, why don’t more SMEs internationalise? In her inaugural lecture Anne van Delft will illustrate the importance of “cooperation within networks” in international business. In today’s “network economy” it is important for firms to leverage their networks. Managing the interplay between networks and knowledge will be one of the key challenges for the 21st century. Cooperation with other firms is especially important for SMEs because it allows firms to utilise their limited resources in the most efficient way. Some of the sectors in the Rotterdam region are world leaders but nevertheless their main competitor might soon come from an emerging market rather than form within the regional cluster. The benefits of cooperation and knowledge sharing should therefore be exploited fully by SMEs in the Rotterdam region as global competition increases.
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This case study describes a special edition of the European Project Semester at the course Sustainable Packaging Design and Innovation at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (Fall Semester 2017). In this special edition, unique cooperation took place between 12 parties. The parties were three research institutes, six universities, and three companies. Some parties have developed an educational module focused upon sustainable and circular packaging design, including the use of a dedicated tool for life cycle assessment. This module was embedded in the regular EPS. At The Hague University of Applied Sciences, an international class of 16 students worked in four teams on a real-life design assignment. They were offered a wide range of lectures, workshops, pitches, and presentations. The chapter concludes with a review of the followed processes and organizational, managerial, and practical concerns. Although run as a unique edition, all parties discuss to continue this cooperation.
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Landside operations in air cargo terminals consist of many freight forwarders (FFWs) delivering and picking up cargo at the capacity-constrained loading docks at the airport's ground handlers' (GHs) facilities. To improve the operations of the terminal and take advantage of their geographical proximity a small set of FFWs can build a coalition to consolidate stochastically-arriving shipments and share truck fleet capacity while other FFWs continue bringing cargo to the terminal in a non-cooperative manner. Results from a detailed discrete-event simulation model of the cargo landside operations in Amsterdam Aiport showed that all operational policies had trade-offs in terms of the average shipment cycle time of coalition FFWs, the average shipment cycle time of non-coalition FFWs, and the total distance traveled by the coalition fleet, suggesting that horizontal cooperation in this context was not always beneficial, contrary to what previous studies on horizontal cooperation have found. Since dock capacity constitutes a significant constraint on operations in air cargo hubs, this paper also investigates the effect of dock capacity utilization and horizontal cooperation on the performance of consolidation policies implemented by the coalition. Thus, we built a general model of the air cargo terminal to analyze the effects caused by dock capacity utilization without the added complexity of landside operations at Amsterdam Airport to investigate whether the results hold for more general scenarios. Results from the general simulation model suggest that, in scenarios where dock and truck capacity become serious constraints, the average shipment cycle times of non-coalition FFWs are reduced at the expense of an increase in the cycle times of FFWs who constitute the coalition. A good balance among all the performance measures considered in this study is reached by following a policy that takes advantage of consolidating shipments based on individual visits to GH.
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The focus of this project is on improving the resilience of hospitality Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by enabling them to take advantage of digitalization tools and data analytics in particular. Hospitality SMEs play an important role in their local community but are vulnerable to shifts in demand. Due to a lack of resources (time, finance, and sometimes knowledge), they do not have sufficient access to data analytics tools that are typically available to larger organizations. The purpose of this project is therefore to develop a prototype infrastructure or ecosystem showcasing how Dutch hospitality SMEs can develop their data analytic capability in such a way that they increase their resilience to shifts in demand. The one year exploration period will be used to assess the feasibility of such an infrastructure and will address technological aspects (e.g. kind of technological platform), process aspects (e.g. prerequisites for collaboration such as confidentiality and safety of data), knowledge aspects (e.g. what knowledge of data analytics do SMEs need and through what medium), and organizational aspects (what kind of cooperation form is necessary and how should it be financed).
The focus of this project is on improving the resilience of hospitality Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by enabling them to take advantage of digitalization tools and data analytics in particular. Hospitality SMEs play an important role in their local community but are vulnerable to shifts in demand. Due to a lack of resources (time, finance, and sometimes knowledge), they do not have sufficient access to data analytics tools that are typically available to larger organizations. The purpose of this project is therefore to develop a prototype infrastructure or ecosystem showcasing how Dutch hospitality SMEs can develop their data analytic capability in such a way that they increase their resilience to shifts in demand. The one year exploration period will be used to assess the feasibility of such an infrastructure and will address technological aspects (e.g. kind of technological platform), process aspects (e.g. prerequisites for collaboration such as confidentiality and safety of data), knowledge aspects (e.g. what knowledge of data analytics do SMEs need and through what medium), and organizational aspects (what kind of cooperation form is necessary and how should it be financed).Societal issueIn the Netherlands, hospitality SMEs such as hotels play an important role in local communities, providing employment opportunities, supporting financially or otherwise local social activities and sports teams (Panteia, 2023). Nevertheless, due to their high fixed cost / low variable business model, hospitality SMEs are vulnerable to shifts in consumer demand (Kokkinou, Mitas, et al., 2023; Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, 2023). This risk could be partially mitigated by using data analytics, to gain visibility over demand, and make data-driven decisions regarding allocation of marketing resources, pricing, procurement, etc…. However, this requires investments in technology, processes, and training that are oftentimes (financially) inaccessible to these small SMEs.Benefit for societyThe proposed study touches upon several key enabling technologies First, key enabling technology participation and co-creation lies at the center of this proposal. The premise is that regional hospitality SMEs can achieve more by combining their knowledge and resources. The proposed project therefore aims to give diverse stakeholders the means and opportunity to collaborate, learn from each other, and work together on a prototype collaboration. The proposed study thereby also contributes to developing knowledge with and for entrepreneurs and to digitalization of the tourism and hospitality sector.Collaborative partnersHZ University of Applied Sciences, Hotel Hulst, Hotel/Restaurant de Belgische Loodsensociëteit, Hotel Zilt, DM Hotels, Hotel Charley's, Juyo Analytics, Impuls Zeeland.
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
