ECLAT is an acronym for European Communication and Language Audit Training Scheme.
The project’s target groups are specifically SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and mercantilist sectors who are seeking to start and/or expand their export business, in particular intra-European trade, to help them overcome their communication (language and culture) barriers. However, any organisation seeking to review its international communication needs may benefit from the availability of trained auditors in that country.
The SME sector is, traditionally, the sector which has experienced most difficulty facing language barriers leading to loss of trade for up to 20% of European SMEs. Furthermore, recent studies, like ELAN (Hagen, 2006) found that defining and adopting a communication strategy can be responsible for a 44, 5% increase in SME export sales.
The assistance provided by the implementation of a scheme delivering language audits, and the training of a group of competent auditors will support SMEs to improve their international competitiveness enabling more to survive and expand through export and in so doing retain higher levels of employment.
ECLAT is based on the previous Leonardo da Vinci funded project Protocol II, led by the Trade Council of Iceland, which successfully adapted the lessons and structures of the ECR (Export Communications Review). ECLAT aims to adapt and implement the already studied audit scheme in the promoting partner country Portugal and adapt and implement a localised version of the audit scheme in the partner countries Bulgaria and Latvia. This will facilitate the integration of language and culture in trade at a very early stage into the new member countries of the European Union, thereby demonstrating knowledge transfer in combination with innovative schemes and ideas on business language needs within a European context.
The training of Language and Communication auditors/consultants is an educational process which develops a new cadre of communication consultants or language auditors. The scheme consists of a training programme, with no equivalent in formal education and is run by a scheme manager from a relevant organization in each partner country.
The existence of a scheme dedicated to language and culture issues in export communications is, by itself, an important facility to improve SME awareness to an increasing globalised business environment.
The newly trained language auditors, accredited by a competent body provide a new and highly innovative form of employment. As experts in their particular field they constitute an invaluable resource to expanding companies. By auditing and teaching SMEs to engage more effectively in international trade the auditors ultimately assist in improving the companies’ ways of communication and thus their competitiveness and entrepreneurial approaches in the international arena.
The Export Communication Review, upon which the scheme is based, has been in existence for over a decade in the UK. It has been found that, companies which undergo a proper (i.e. regulated) communication audit tend to operate more effectively in selling their goods and services into markets where their mother tongue is not spoken. By signing up and taking part in the audit scheme, the companies are taught intercultural skills and communication skills, which are reflected in an increased annual turnover.
