Heads of Latvian companies acknowledge that their employees and management could benefit from acquiring foreign language and marketing skills, reveals Citadele Index.
Almost one half (43%) of Latvian company heads indicate that their employees and management could benefit from improving their foreign language skills, the most recent Citadele Index study suggests. Marketing skills are the second most coveted ones, as indicated by 34% company heads, when replying to the following question: in which business-related areas employees and management need additional skills.
Acquiring business-related computer skills (for 29% of respondents) and financial flow planning skills (for 27.5% of respondents) are equally important, reveals Citadele Index.
Santa Purgaile, Board Member of Citadele banka, "Various higher education institutions' business administration programs teach a lot about micro and macroeconomic processes. However, it is important to pay more attention particularly to financial management in order to build solid understanding and knowledge foundations. We witness in practice that this is what business people, especially young ones, lack most. The most substantial shortcoming is that frequently entrepreneurs cannot distinguish between cash flows and profit and loss statements. More often than not, business owners could greatly benefit from improving their knowledge in this field. Small and medium enterprise owners typically cannot afford financiers and, unless they possess knowledge in this area themselves, it is difficult to build a successful business."
Approximately 27% of the surveyed company heads acknowledge that they and their employees could use additional knowledge about IT security and computer virus prevention measures. In turn, 14% of respondents indicated that it would be topical for them to acquire additional knowledge on how to successfully launch and organize export operations.
An interesting matter of fact is that, in separate cases, entrepreneurs pointed out that they could benefit from acquiring additional knowledge on positive thinking and motivation, fighting against bureaucracy, as well as journalism and teaching skills.
About Citadele Index
The key task of Citadele Index is to obtain a unified index that characterizes entrepreneurs’ subjective assessment of economic conditions in the state, and to make forecasts for the next six months. The index is calculated by means of summarizing the entrepreneurs' assessment in such matters as: general economic activity in the state and in the represented sector, competitiveness in the represented industry as well as various indices from their companies' business results. Citadele Index is calculated by summing up and assessing poll results obtained from the heads of 750 enterprises of various volumes and representing various industries. The Citadele Index study is performed on a quarterly basis by the market and public opinion research centre SKDS. The previous study was conducted in March 2015.
About Citadele banka
Citadele is a local Latvian bank that offers banking, financial and asset management services. Citadele Group's principal market of operation is the Baltic States: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Citadele banka is the exclusive cooperation partner of American Express® in Latvia and Lithuania that possesses the right to issue American Express payment cards. Ripplewood Advisors LLC and a group of international investors own 75% plus one share of Citadele banka. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) owns the remaining 25% minus one of the bank's shares. Additional information available at www.citadele.lv.