With a Bachelor degree in Accounting, and working experience in financial auditing, Daniel Cornea plans to open an enterprise through which he will support other companies in improving their business processes, more specifically administrative, accounting, financial and reporting processes. He joined the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme looking for a hands-on experience in a similar business, which could also provide him the right environment and stimulation to create new business process improvement services.
Daniel found this perfect environment for development at Bold Decision Ltd (UK). Here, Nigel Lambe, the founder of the company and a successful experienced entrepreneur, was looking to work with an enthusiastic and smart person who could learn fast about his business, provide new approach for the business processes, and co-develop business reporting systems that could be sold to current or new clients.
Daniel believed that “although business readings make the process of building an enterprise to look like a path with no hills, the real story of such a process can be learned from talking to experienced people, asking open-ended questions, gaining valuable, real insights about this endeavour”. At Bold Decision Ltd, Daniel found the right people to talk to during the two-month exchange.
Two hard-working and creative months
The exchange started, as predicted, with a lot of questions from Daniel for Nigel and his colleagues. At the same time, Daniel was driven around getting to know all the locations of the business, and the business processes.
Then, Nigel and Daniel worked together to map the business processes of the company. Nigel provided Daniel with valuable insights about business best practices in the UK, including but not limited to how to establish a company, the taxation system, ways of acquiring costumers etc. At the same time, Nigel also helped Daniel to refine his business plan, the services he planned, and also the customer and price policy. Moreover, Daniel had the chance to participate in couple of networking events where he interacted with local entrepreneurs, learning more about the business environment.
During the exchange, Daniel and Nigel, with the support of other members of Bold Decision team, designed a new reporting framework that could be used by businesses for presenting results and progress to their board members. This reporting framework resulted in new services both Daniel and Nigel could sell to their clients.
Growing their businesses
The two months spent in Nigel’s company helped Daniel to gain the hands-on experience he wanted, but most of all, he found the right environment, and he met the experienced people who provided the necessary stimulation for developing his business, define services, approach clients, and create innovative services. Back to Romania, Daniel started his business and currently he provides accounting services to companies, but he plans for extending his services based on the tools he developed during the exchange.
Nigel had the opportunity to work with an enthusiastic young entrepreneur, share his solid experience, learn about Romanian accounting market, and make use of a new business reporting framework.
In their own words
“I got a detailed view of the processes of the company; also, I had the chance to see how business transactions are recorded and how these transactions are used to create management reports. Moreover, I proposed improvements for company’s databases and financial reports. Once I had returned in Romania, I activated my company on accounting services, and I started to collaborate with my host’s company and to work on attracting new clients from Romania and abroad”. (Daniel Cornea)
“Daniel settled into the business very quickly and understood how our business operated from a practical position and how this translated into our flows of data. He was then able to produce reports and KPI’s that were of immediate use across the business”. (Nigel Lambe)
This article was funded by the European Union’s COSME Programme (2014-2020).
The content of this article represents the views of the author only and it is her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Executive Agency of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.
