Both companies are small hidden champions which created their own market niche. They, as most of our member companies, did not and don’t want to grow into large multinational companies. They are still family owned and are rooted in their region, and have a close and good relationship with their employees. Their relative smallness is also one of their biggest assets: They can react quickly to changing market conditions and have loyal, highly-qualified personnel, which create a high level of customer loyalty as well. These types of companies are the core of the economic success of my region. But these types of companies still need support as they continuously need to adjust to rapidly changing framework conditions. Support-needs of SMEs What practical support do SMEs need? SMEs need hands-on practical support which is easy to access. With new products and services, they need unbureaucratic financial support to get through the valley of death that each innovation has to overcome. They need access to support networks which speak the SMEs’ language. They need support to connect with other SMEs, suitable innovation agencies, cluster organizations and larger companies to compensate for the disadvantages of their size. They also need training and support to cope with all issues that they are not specialized in and can‘t afford their own specialists in(e.g. legal issues, export know-how, tax issues etc). SMEs also need support in seeing beyond the day-today­business which is normally taking up all their time. We thus developed a ten-step plan that should support our SMEs in a more long-term approach to international success, which includes the following steps and helps them to establish a different business culture: 1) Analysis of strength and weakness 2) Analysis of chances and risks 3) Checklist for international business success 4) Market selection 5) Analysis of framework conditions 6) Selection of goals 7) Resources 8) Analysis of possible tasks 9) Selection of Tasks 10) Implementation and performance review. Most of our companies are good in their core business but need support to have a more strategic approach to their business activities, and they need to learn how to better present what makes them special to the outside world and to their own employees. How can SMEs thrive after the Coronavirus crisis? In principle, the post-Corona world will not be all that different from the pre-Corona-world. The future was uncertain in all the ages. This may come as less as a surprise in Bangladesh than in Germany, where SMEs are more used to working in a predictable, secure environment. But there were many cracks in the wall even before COVID-19 hit. How mobility will work in the future, for example, affects my region in a very substantial way, as the car industry is one of the main industries in my region, with many SMEs depending on the car industry as customers. Climate change may have profound effects on framework conditions of SMEs, as much as the way globalization will go(or be reversed) affects SMEs in our export-driven economy. The coronavirus crisis has made uncertainty all the more obvious but has not invented uncertainty. How can SMEs react to or anticipate these uncertain developments? Like everybody else, SMEs need to keep their ears to the ground. As they are smaller and are not as omnipresent as multinational companies, they need to connect and network to have an early warning system. They need to build their capacity to prepare for different scenarios of what the future will bring, and they need to learn to think beyond their day-to-day business and reflect on how to take advantage of potential business opportunities and prepare for potential threats to their current business. As they are normally fully involved in their day-to-day business, they need a SME-friendly support system to stay ahead of the curve and still survive the valley of death that every innovation and new business model has to face before they can live off their new business ideas.The organizations and financial support schemes for SMEs need to accept the risk that not all SMEs and their business ideas will flourish and allow for the failure of some SMEs as well, instead of setting up bureaucratic walls which many SMEs will not be able to climb, even those who have the best ideas in their core business. Support for SMEs in a period dominated by insecurity? Some European ideas Europe may have some best practice cases for such a system but also some experiences on how not to organize this, so let’s have a short look at what worked in Germany and Europe during the crisis and what is planned for the future: Secure the short-time survival of SMEs in the lock-down-period, e.g. in Germany /Europe by: • Wage payment programs by the government (Kurzarbeitsgeld). The Germansy stem of paying a part of employees’ salary when companies cannot employ them for a medium-range period in an acute crisis had already paid off in the financial crisis of 2008, when it prevented mass unemployement Support-needs of SMEs. 29