The Entrepreneurs’ Galleries Program aims to boost the entrepreneurial spirit of the residents of São José dos Campos’ low-income neighborhoods, stimulating socio-economic development.
The two Entrepreneurs’ Galleries were closed at various times during the pandemic by state and city decrees. Entrepreneurs had to find new ways to sell their products and keep their businesses going; they include clothing stores, beauty parlors, pet stores, tattoo studios, restaurants, lottery retailers and sewing services, snack bars, and confectionery stores.
The TechPark monitored them closely, providing information, instructions, and opportunities, in partnership with Sebrae and companies connected to the TechPark, to reduce the impacts of the pandemic.
Resumption Program
The Resumption Program was created by the TechPark in partnership with Sebrae to help entrepreneurs of the Entrepreneurs’ Galleries to resume their businesses through access to credit, training in online sales technologies, and strategies to manage and increase sales.
The Park provided 20 hours of on-site training in the two entrepreneurs’ galleries.
Digital Transformation
In three years as a clothing store owner, Tamires Rocha, 28, had never experienced a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic. Her store is located in the Entrepreneurs’ Gallery in Campo dos Alemães. In the first few months, Tamires had to keep the store closed, she saw suppliers stopping deliveries, and had to invest more in online sales. At the peak of the pandemic, she worked temporarily in a lottery retailer to make ends meet. In this scenario, common to all store owners, the São José dos Campos Technology Park, along with companies associated with the Vale ICT Cluster, created a digital transformation program to be applied in an objective and optimized way in small businesses. The pilot project was carried out with store owners from the Entrepreneurs’ Galleries – six commercial establishments were selected: two eyewear stores, one clothing store, one cleaning products store, one candy shop, and one stationery store.
The program considered the insertion of the establishment in social media, Google business, marketplaces, and Whatsapp business.
“Participating in the program was fundamental. After the project, I had a 40% increase in customer flow through digital channels. Before that, I used to post on social media, but without any strategy. I do not have higher education, and everything I learned was not structured”, says Tamires Rocha, clothing store owner at the Entrepreneurs’ Gallery of Campo dos Alemães.
Agile management methodologies were used to create fast and cost-effective solutions for companies. A real war squad to insert the stores in the digital world. For this project, the member companies Datalogix Brasil, Super-CIient Solutions, Resultage, andYoutan participated.
