Senior Expert Contact (SEC): Impact of remote assignment: contribution to the strengthening of resilience and retention of jobs in the COVID-19 crisis 

Switzerland
Entrepreneurial ecosystems
21.12.2022
With 23% of the 2021 clients and 60% of the 2020 clients that reported that their business was still negatively affected by the Covid-19-crisis explicitly stated that the support of the SEC expert helped to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 crisis, the findings indicate that the remote assignments have contributed to their resilience.

Two-thirds of the interviewed 2021 SEC clients and almost half of the interviewed 2020 SEC clients recorded a stabilization or even growth of their profit and/or turnover. Furthermore, most of the clients reported job retention (inc. rehiring) or creation of jobs. For the other clients, it was either too early to provide information on turnover and jobs or no changes have been observed.

Yet, directly linking this rather positive performance of SEC clients to the SEC remote assignments is not possible as several other external factors influence this development, above all the general economic recovery that varies from country to country. However, following the Theory of Change of the modality of the remote assignments at least a contribution to the impacts in terms of jobs and income can be assumed given that SEC clients improved their business performance thanks to the adoption of the experts’ advice.

Whether remote or on-site, the expert assignments of the Senior Expert Contact are important to their clients and remain relevant also in the light of the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis (“built back better”) but also related to any future economic, social or environmental shock that might affect the clients’ businesses.

Benin, Bolivia, Cambodia, Kosovo, Nepal, Peru
Entrepreneurial ecosystems
Senior Expert Contact
Promoting entrepreneurship through expertise - Imparting technical skills through volunteer work Through their services, Senior Expert Contact (SEC) experts provide hands-on, direct support to companies and institutions in their efforts to grow.
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