Abstract:

The implementation of educational activities for Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), by Chilean government entities, has been a tradition in the last decade, especially by entities aimed at strengthening productive development. Innovation is recognized as a crucial process for the growth, sustainability and competitiveness of SMMEs, a scenario in which the formation of human capital is essential. In times of pandemic, it is essential to meet the dynamic needs of the company in a context of globalization, in which the domain of effective virtual management and response to logistics problems associated with the distribution chain are more current than ever. In a scenario of global health crisis, SMMEs have faced new challenges and difficulties, which is why access to education channels is essential to survive in increasingly fast-paced markets. The manuscript presents the development of a study whose objective was to know the changes of focus that occurred in the training offer delivered to SMMEs by government entities in Chile and its projection towards 2025. The methodology includes a review of public databases referred to the offer of training for SMMEs between the years 2015 to 2019 and 2020 to 2021, determining the main recipients, modality in which they were taught, characteristics and contents of the courses, function of the company that seeks to strengthen. The results demonstrate substantial changes in focus and modality. Until before the global health crisis caused by COVID-19, in Chile, the focus on business education granted by public organizations was mainly on the empowerment of companies' internal affairs. Courses, trainings and workshops were taught in person and were mainly aimed at reducing the administrative burden faced by companies, improving financial management, monitoring production, and increasing the quality of the offer. With the pandemic, knowledge needs have arisen to adapt to the new and hasty demands that the commercialization of products and services online supposes, in addition to the development of strategic thinking that allows them to act in a scenario of uncertainty. In the context of helping to improve the competitiveness of the business sector and, in particular, of smaller companies, various initiatives with public financing are promoting a better virtual business environment, providing valuable strategic tools to micro entrepreneurs. CapacitaCorfo is one of them. It consists of a digital platform where the government entity dedicated to the promotion of production and business empowerment in Chile, has made training courses, tutorials and forums available free of charge, based on its own resources and strategic alliances with other public entities and private. The conclusions show coherent changes in the offer, with the current pandemic scenario, as well as an agile dynamics to reach MSMEs. The experience of education for companies has required high levels of organization, coordination and increased communication channels, to effectively reach the companies that have required the most updating.

Keywords:

Teaching, companies, innovation.