Abstract:

Competitiveness for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) is crucial in the globalized world of the present. Although a lot of analysis are implemented about this variable in Economics, the true is that each company is different and each region has its own characteristics that will make possible, or not, its success in the future.

However, some aspects that we will develop in this paper can be considered common for almost all type of SME in any region. We will focus on Europe, where several areas have suffered the biggest economical crisis during the last years. In these days, the market is very complex and competitive, and in some sectors with a high decreasing of sales, competition is sometimes aggressive and innovations are presented in all fields, and in this scenario the strength of SME is one of the characteristics that make difference between success and failure of the economy of a region and even a country. Education and training play a key role for developing SME in this context.

Keywords:

Education, training, competitiveness, SME, companies, e-learning.