PNO Consultants: New era of grants for CZ

Soon there is to happen a major change on grants schemes available to subjects from the Czech Republic: the “classic” Structural funds will be depleted. Still too complex and difficult to use sources of grant money are to be gone and replaced by EU wide support programs like Framework programs, Cross border grant schemes and European Investment Bank actions.

Since 25 years, PNO has assisted SMEs, multinationals, non-profit and public companies in achieving grant success. Through these grants, it helps companies and organizations to realize their ambitions on short track.

The full service consultancy is leading in the whole Europe, with over 500 employees in 13 different countries.  According to CEO Willem Zandbergen, grants are an important instrument to guarantee economic growth, especially in difficult economic times.  “One of the ways the government illustrates its agenda, is through allocating grants,” he explains.  “Through grants it stimulates investments and innovations in the business in order to guarantee economic growth.”

Already now PNO wants to prepare both itself as well as potential grant applicants (= you) to this new era of public support. As a reaction we started a number of initiatives such as:

• Opened to public round of education seminars prepared in close cooperation with Regional Governments and respective European institutions (first took place at the seat of Brno LRG few days ago, next to follow soon)
• Strengthening its CEE network and Vienna HUB with focus on knowledge sharing and partners network establishing potential: new Senior staff members were invited from PNO´s mother country, the Netherlands: Siegfried Doetjes and Gerben van der Wall, who joined already existing competence core team and are significantly contributing to successful transfer of knowhow into our region.
• EIB activities focus: programs as Jessica, Jaspers and EU loans are supported not only by providing services to applicants, but especially in CEE sector by preparing infrastructure. Needs analysis, process suggestions and even actual infrastructure management are the competencies PNO is offering to EIB and actually running in many countries of the region.

However there are still opportunities within classical grant sources which should not be missed:

As recent Czech grant arena examples opened almost to any type of companies, Robert Šedivec, Country Manager of PNO Czech Republic, mentions the Innovations, EcoEnergy, Training Centers, R&D, ICT services and Waste management. Those are driven by so called Structural Funds of EU, huge grant resources which are to be realistically available for next 12 to 16 months maximum. Besides of them there are grants provided by Czech ministries and Regional Governments. And of course the biggest sources are directly from Brussels, Framework Programs and others. Any investment above CZK 5 million is worth to be checked for grant opportunity of any time, however, to do so, deep knowledge as well as wide overview of the current grant options are needed.

“Every day, we meet companies and organizations which are flexible and willing to renew their activities, creating their own new chances,” Willem Zandbergen, the CEO of PNO Group, adds.  “This stimulates us enormously to facilitate companies in achieving their venture objectives. Thanks to our scale size, our specialists and our contacts with grant providers, we have more than once helped customers to realize projects which seemed initially financially not feasible.”

Success thanks to cooperation

One of the ways in which the government wants to continue reinforcing the economy, is by creating partnerships.  In this case, the government demands that a partnership is formed before companies receive grants.  “This is a valuable strategy,” thus Zandbergen. “Cooperation is a powerful formula in realizing innovative matters. Regularly we bring together parties who jointly set up projects. That joint effort increases the chance of a project being realized but also increases the access to grants.  In this stage, we notice that our service is profitable and that it leads to grant successes.”

Excellent grant application

A grant application requires exact knowledge and time. “With five hundred specialists, we have all the necessary information within both businesses and the public sector,” Zandbergen explains the strength of PNO. Relations frequently involve our expertise already in the first idea around a project. That enables us to think the project through and to help in building the project in such a way that grants become available.  Add to this the fact that we are properly informed about incentives, even before they become public knowledge.  This way, we can inform our clients about eligible chances and the associated conditions.  We can also establish a feasibility study and an action plan.

“Focus leads to success,” Zandbergen fills in. “Our working method relieves our customers from activities which do not belong to their primary tasks. By helping them obtain grant money in an efficient way for achieving their objectives, they can concentrate on their main activities. As a matter of fact, this leads to a tripled grant output.”