The BAS Programme has two main objectives: assisting SMEs in their business
development, and supporting the professional development of local consultants.
The BAS Programme’s prime objective is to help SMEs to improve operations, enter
new markets and gain access to financing so that they become enduring businesses and
maximise opportunities for growth. Enterprises with fewer than 500 employees are
major engines of job creation in countries around the world, and by supporting SMEs
in Central Asia, the BAS Programme is furthering secondary objectives of poverty
alleviation and sustainable economic development. Smaller enterprises tend to be
able to take advantage of market opportunities more quickly than larger ones and thus
contribute immensely to the competitiveness of their economies; the BAS Programme’s
assistance to such enterprises thus aims to support the ability of the economies in
which the programme operates to compete with imports entering the country as well as
with the economies of other countries in cross-border and global markets.
Development of local consulting capabilities is the second objective of the
BAS Programme. More than 90% of the consultants hired for BAS-supported projects in
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are locally-based. The programme provides consultants with
experience working on commercial projects for local companies and, as a demanding party
to the project contract, compels consultants to perform their best for client
enterprises. When local consulting capabilities are insufficient for implementing a
given project, the BAS Programme can twin a foreign consultant with a local one; such
consultant twinning provides the client enterprise with the required services and
simultaneously enhances the local consultant’s ability to undertake similar projects
in the future. In addition, the BAS Programme makes information about local consultants available to potential client enterprises, thus
supporting the development of a market for advisory services in
which enterprises can solicit and compare proposals and prices.
The producer of these consumer goods was assisted by BAS in the development
and launch of a new nationwide brand for a wide range of products
Both of these objectives aim to support the transition to market economies in the BAS
Programme’s countries of operation.
In order to meet its objectives, the BAS Programme works directly with individual SMEs,
providing practical business advice to assist with the removal of barriers to growth
and development, and to enhance competitiveness and effective management. At the same
time, BAS builds local consultancy capacity to serve enterprise needs.
This cheese factory is implementing ISO 9001:2000 with BAS support; in
addition to the enterprise efficiency benefits to be expected from the
quality management system, management expects that ISO certification will
make the enterprise more attractive to foreign investors
The assistance we provide
The distinctive characteristic of the BAS approach lies in the role of BAS personnel
who act as facilitators and intermediaries between SMEs with advisory needs and
consultants who can fulfil those needs. The BAS staff gain an understanding of the
requirements of each SME, diagnose the problems, and then arrange for the necessary
work to be performed.
The consulting assignment is carried out by qualified and approved local business and
management consultants rather than BAS staff. The business consultants act as an
extension of the BAS personnel. Thus the range of BAS support is not restricted by
the capabilities of internal staff. This also means that BAS does not compete with
local consultants, but rather supports their development.
The assistance in a
BAS project is made up of three components: (1) assistance in setting up the project; (2)
project monitoring and evaluation; and (3) a grant that covers up to 50% of the
project cost.
Assistance in setting up the
project: often just as important as the grant funding is the
assistance provided by BAS Programme staff in project preparation.
Although each case is unique, this can entail:
Assisting management in redefining a business problem in terms
of tasks for a consultant: For example, an enterprise manager may
realise that sales need to be increased but may not have the
experience of working with a market research consultant to define that
need in terms of researching new markets, projecting potential sales
and developing recommendations for effective market entry. BAS
Programme staff often help managers make this first conceptual step,
which usually results in a first outline of the potential project’s
terms of reference.
Assistance in selecting a consultant: The selection of the
consultant is handled internally by each client enterprise. This is
important in ensuring that the client is convinced of the consultant’s
ability to undertake the project successfully. However, the BAS
Programme provides potential clients with the contact information of
consultants that have been qualified [link to the section describing
how consultants can participate] by the programme and often is asked
by enterprise managers to describe the background and experience of
the various potential consultants. BAS Programme staff also provide
general guidance in soliciting competing proposals from potential
consultants.
Assistance in developing and finalising the terms of reference
(TOR), budget and project contract: after a consultant has been
selected, the project documents must be drawn up. The BAS Programme
assists in completing the required steps so that the drafting process
– that can take months to finalise – is completed within days. The
programme’s standard formats for the TOR, budget and contract
facilitate this to a large degree, but it is the active intervention
of the BAS Programme’s staff that is the key to ensuring that the
project documents are usually drafted, reviewed and signed in less
than two weeks.
Project monitoring and evaluation: the
third element of the BAS Programme’s assistance is in monitoring
projects during their implementation and evaluating their results after
they are completed. At a minimum, BAS Programme staff attend the interim
and final presentations that all consultants are required to make in a
BAS-supported project and review the project reports. The BAS Programme
staff often provide comments to the consultant as the project
progresses. If a consultant does not perform to the satisfaction of a
client enterprise, BAS staff intervene to ensure that the specific
reasons for the client’s dissatisfaction are made clear to the
consultant; in some cases, the BAS programme must impress upon the
consultant that final payment will take place only upon satisfactory
completion of the project. The BAS Programme undertakes project
evaluations immediately upon completion of a project and again one year
after project completion; in the second evaluation, the programme
assesses the impact of the project on the client enterprise’s overall
business performance. In addition, independent evaluation is a built-in
feature of the BAS Programme; on a biannual basis, independent
evaluators are hired to undertake random evaluations of BAS-supported
projects in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme’s
activities.
Project grant
: enterprises that participate in the BAS Programme receive a grant
that covers up to half of the cost of the project,
up to a maximum subsidy of USD 10,000. As this is
not a 100% subsidy, BAS client enterprises must nonetheless demonstrate a
significant commitment to the project. Thus, the programme is market
oriented, and the provision of business advice is driven by the real
needs of the enterprise. At the same time, the programme makes expert
advisory services accessible to SMEs for whom an advisory
project would otherwise be simply too expensive. At the same
time, many SMEs in Central Asia are reluctant to pay
for advisory services because they have no experience of working with
consultants or are not yet convinced of the value
of such services; for such companies, the grant provided by the
BAS Programme lowers the threshold for undertaking a first
advisory project. The grant is paid only after satisfactory project
completion.
The BAS model is efficient, as it operates in each country with a small management
team that delivers a large number of projects. Simple, effective procedures allow
decisions to be made without delay.
Our donors
The BAS Programme in Kazakhstan is funded by the Government of Japan through the Japan-Europe Cooperation Fund. The JECF was
established in 1991 by the Ministry of Finance of Japan in order to fund
technical cooperation in areas that are of fundamental importance in the
transition toward market-oriented economies in Central and Eastern Europe and
the Commonwealth of Independent States. The JECF has financed projects in 26 of
the EBRD’s countries of operations. However, the fund has increasingly focused
its activities on projects in Central Asia and other CIS countries.
The BAS Programmes in the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan are funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (seco).
Seco is Switzerland's competence centre for all core issues relating to economic
policy. Seco's aim is to create the basic regulatory and economic policy
conditions to enable business to flourish for the benefit of all. Seco
represents Switzerland in the large multilateral trade organisations as well as
in international negotiations.
BAS Programme Participants
The BAS Programme has a mandate from its donor to support the development of local,
private small and medium enterprises in its countries of operation. As a result,
enterprises must meet the following four criteria in order to be considered for
participation in the BAS Programme:
Locally-owned: the BAS Programme works only with companies in
which at least 51% of ownership belongs to local interests, 80% in Kyrgyzstan and
Uzbekistan. In practice, the BAS Programme in Central Asia works almost exclusively
with 100% locally-owned enterprises.
Private: the maximum allowable state ownership in any BAS client enterprise
is 25%. In practice, almost all BAS clients are 100% privately owned.
Fewer than 500 employees: this is the BAS Programme’s definition of “small and
medium enterprise.” Most BAS clients in Central Asia employ between 50 and 250 people,
and the programme rarely works with companies that have fewer than 10 employees.
In business for at least 2 years (1 year in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan): to be eligible for consideration for BAS support, an
enterprise must be able to demonstrate a track record of some success. A
company that has established a solid presence is more likely to be able
to absorb and make use of the advice provided through BAS.
As the BAS Programme is results-driven, only enterprises with definite potential are
targeted for support. Attempting to “rescue” marginal enterprises is not a programme
goal.
As part of our “open door policy,” applications for BAS assistance are accepted from
any company that meets the criteria listed above. The final decision about whether to
support a project is made following a site visit to the enterprise and meetings with
management to assess the enterprise’s prospects as well as its ability to utilise the
desired advice.
Although the primary beneficiaries of a BAS project are SMEs, consultants are also key
participants in the BAS Programme. Qualified local consultants are preferred, and
more than 80% of Central Asia BAS project funding has been paid to local consultants.
Local consultants offer excellent value for money and can communicate directly with
the enterprise without language or cultural barriers, which increases the likelihood
that the advice will be understood and acted upon. Also, local consultants aim to
build a professional reputation and are strongly motivated. Where limitations in the
capabilities of local consultants exist, BAS will arrange for training and/or foreign
experts to be engaged. In such situations, foreign consultants are usually twinned
with local consultants to promote the transfer of professional expertise and to build
the local capacity.
BAS helped this retailer obtain advice on the development of a brand name
and image for a new chain of retail outlets
The BAS Programme teams are always interested in learning of consultants that would like
to offer their services to BAS client enterprises. The BAS Programme conducts a
review of each consultant’s capabilities, including site visits to previous clients,
before proposing them as potential consultants to a client enterprise. Interested
consultants can contact the programme at the coordinates on this site’s contact page.
The history of the BAS Programme
The first Business Advisory Services Programme was
established in Lithuania in 1995 as part of a broad initiative sponsored
by the Nordic Council of Ministers to assist the transition of the Baltic states to
market-based economies. It was in Lithuania that the basic approach and methodologies now
implemented by all BAS Programmes were developed. Programmes in Latvia and Estonia were
launched soon after the Lithuanian programme as part of the same Nordic
initiative. The Baltic BAS Programme was enlarged in 1998 to provide more support
for enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. BAS was then expanded, first to north-west
Russia, then to Central Asia and Southeast Europe, and most recently to the
Caucasus and Far East Russia.
The BAS Programme is now operating in 19 countries.
Information on BAS Programmes in these countries is available at www.tambas.org.
