Distinguished professionals mentor domestic manufacturers in the HFDA’s program

Upon assessment of the huge interest in its previous Manufacturer Mentoring Programs, the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency launched its third educative programme, extended to the creative processing industry, which provides domestic manufacturers with knowledge about business management, sales, technology and sustainability innovations. In the programme, the HFDA cooperates with the Export Academy Directorate of the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency (HEPA), so fashion and design industry manufacturers can learn cutting-edge business and manufacturing technology from numerous outstanding experts.

In cooperation with HEPA, the HFDA is organising the Manufacturers Mentoring Programme for the third time, which aims to strengthen the domestic fashion and design industry’s manufacturing base, and is attracting more and more interest every year. But the educational programme, which will last three months this year, until the end of March 2023, is different from those in the previous years since, besides textile and clothing industry enterprises, manufacturers in the creative processing industry also get the opportunity to improve their business and manufacturing technology skills.

When selecting the programme’s mentors, it was important to include renowned experts in the training who are familiar with the state of Hungarian factories but also have a broad view of the international market. From HEPA, Dr Dénes Legeza, Sára Holly, Szabolcs Rabb, Iván Gyurácz Németh and Árpád Papp-Váry help participants’ professional development.

Dr Dénes Legeza is a national expert, Head of the Innovation Support Department at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), copyright expert, and Lecturer at the University of Szeged. The highly knowledgeable expert, who has vast experience in the field of industrial property and copyright law, enriches his lectures with practical examples and illustrations ensuring a smoother and easier learning process. Iván Gyurácz Németh strategic marketing expert also takes part in the mentoring. He is a member of the Export Cooperation and a board member of the Hungarian Foreign Trade Association, his main field of expertise is developing companies, especially SMEs, into international organisations, and, as a practised trainer, he frequently gives presentations on international relations and foreign trade both in English and Hungarian. Árpád Papp-Váry is an Associate Professor at the Budapest Business School, and leader of the Department of Marketing. He is Head of the Marketing and Tourism Programme at the Doctoral School of Economics at the University of Sopron, and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Economic Geography and Urban Marketing at the John von Neumann University of Kecskemét. His teaching and research specialisations are country and city branding, personal branding, sports branding and branded entertainment. Sára Holly, Head of Office at Enterprise Europe Network will also aid the participants’ development as well as Szabolcs Rabb, Secretary for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Pécs-Baranya.

In addition to HEPA specialists, third-party mentors also contribute to the success of the programme. Alexandra Horváth will give a presentation on financial operations and provide guidance to programme participants on economic questions related to optimising production. In the programme, Dr Andrea Sólyom, an organisational development consultant, trainer, and university lecturer, will help uncover opportunities that may seem invisible in the life of a business, by looking at the processes that can help a business to move forward through the lenses of an external expert. Ákos Lukács is responsible for presenting sustainability as a competitiveness factor in the programme. He will demonstrate international and domestic case studies to fashion and design industry manufacturers, providing them with plenty of good practices, and mentees can also deepen their knowledge about the benefits of sustainability and future trends.

Zoltán Galla, international business development expert, owner and Managing Director of Startup Campus Germany GmbH., offers business development and sales, as well as event organisation and HR services for tech companies targeting the German market, so he will give a presentation to the participants about entering the foreign market, based on his experience. Gergely Rácz, IT consultant, will demonstrate the enhancement of online effectiveness and webshop analysis to the manufacturers. His presentation’s goal is to introduce the most basic webshop elements and their uses. Emese Dobos is a junior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies. She will raise attention to possible growth tracks in the light- and creative industries. Moreover, András Koleszár, a master teacher at the University of Óbuda, will show the preparation of vector graphics production in the field of the light industry. Nowadays, the use of vector graphics software is indispensable in the life of every business, as it is excellent for design, pre-production, and documentation, easy to use, but at the same time, the final result is spectacular and accurate.

Thus, the mentors participating in the Manufacturers Mentoring Programme contribute to the competitiveness and business success of the enterprises by passing on practical and up-to-date knowledge. As a result, the manufacturers can gain knowledge that can help them increase sales, thus facilitating one of the HFDA’s goals, that is, increasing the exportability of industry enterprises and strengthening the sector.