This Wednesday (November 20, 2019), organized by the European Business Association, City of Skopje, and Piksel, and supported by EOS Matrix and Tikvesh, the conference European Day of the Entrepreneur – “Digital for Entrepreneurship” was held. An event that was part of the European SME Week, an initiative organized in Macedonia for the 11th year.
The conference offered the attendees several interesting topics of conversation translated into an introductory presentation and three expert panels with representatives from several activities.
In the introductory presentation through an informative discussion, the event was opened by Katerina Boshevska, president of EBA, who spoke about the challenges of companies brought by digitization, Jovan Despotovski, director of the Fund for Innovation and Technological Development, who followed up on the support that FITR provides to entrepreneurs in this process, and Marko Todorov, head of the local economic development department of the City of Skopje, who announced the next steps that will make Skopje a smart city and bring it one step closer to modern European and world capitals.
The introductory presentation was followed by the three expert panels, which were opened with presentations by Vladimir Ristevski from digital agency Piksel, Sergej Zafirovski from Insider ID together with Ognen Ognenovski from Target Group, and Igor Madzov from Startup Macedonia. The presenters were also in the role of moderators of the three panels titled “How to fast growth with the help of digital marketing?”, “Electronic commerce: the future of Macedonian companies to go out into the world” and “Make your dream come true: how to finance your business, an innovative idea.”
“There is no overnight success in digital marketing. Success is the result of previous painstaking work,” said Vladimir Ristevski, co-founder and marketing director at Piksel.
He moderated the first panel discussion where Arijana Koskarova from Creative Hub Macedonia, Lira Jokic from IDEA Plus Communications, Vladimir Vecovski from R3 Infomedia, and Dragan Josifovski from Paket.mk talked about the possibilities offered by digital marketing and how Macedonian companies use it to reach the desired customers and results.
At the panel moderated by Sergej Zafiroski, the panelists Marina Antova from DHL Express, Chris Popovski from SIGNORI, Ognen Ognenovski from Target Group, and Viktor Stojkoski from the Macedonian E-commerce Association conveyed the message that e-commerce is the future for which we must all be prepared, and especially entrepreneurs who want to keep up with the times and be successful in the future.
Zafirovski and Ognenovski also presented the report from their research on the current state of e-commerce in our country. The research findings in which the numbers are quite optimistic, according to which a 15% increase in the number of e-commerce companies in Macedonia is expected next year.
“E-commerce is growing every year, and that’s why we all have to work together both on the education of end users and on increasing the offer because we believe that the future of business development is precisely in this branch.” – said Viktor Stojkoski from Association for e-commerce of Macedonia.
Igor Madzhov closed the European SME Week conference with his presentation and then the panel where he was the moderator, together with Vladimir Kechovski from Sparkasse Bank, Nenad Chubrinovski from InPlayer, as a representative of MASIT and Tanja Ilijevska from the Innovation and Technological Development Fund, talked about financing opportunities of innovative Macedonian startups.
The panelists, in addition to the increasing number of options offered to new startups in our country, also highlighted the possibilities of financing a good idea through the large selection of international options emphasizing proactivity in this field as the key element for the success of each startup.
