CONTEXTAs the footwear sector rapidly grows into an integral part of the European economic growth,providing more than 260.000 job opportunities,the need of Europe for global exports becomes even more decisive for the European enterprises.This case is driven by the fact that Europe is culpable only for 13% of global exports,exporting around 15% of its production outside EU.Concurrently, the European financial crisis still has a negative impact on the sector with a notable number of businesses dropping down and their turnover decreasing significantly due to lack of adequate skills to sustain their operations within a competitive global market.SOLUTIONThe BOOST4Shoes project developed an open,all-inclusive training program for boosting skills towards a more efficient use of the Internet as a sales channel to enhance cross border business activity resulting in higher competitiveness,less business failures and thus increased revenues to ultimately benefit the EU economy.After the completion of the training, all participants in BOOST4Shoes were able to retain and improve their knowledge and skills,acquire new high-quality competences and continue their professional development by implementing the recommended strategies.PARTICIPANTSThe project envisaged the following target groups:Directly:-EU Footwear SMEs-Sales managers and professionals dealing with the footwear sectorIndirectly:-VET training organizations,trainers already providing entrepreneurship,eCommerce,ICT related training or looking to introduce such a training offering,business coaches-SME chambers,Business Innovation Centers,entrepreneurship associations,public officials responsible for entrepreneurship/growth/VET. OBJECTIVEThe purpose of the project was to help entrepreneurs of the footwear sector improve their skills and knowledge in e-Commerce strategies supported by the smart use of ICT/eBusiness for generating revenues through cross-border sales.PARTNERSThe partnership comprised the following organizations:-CIVIC (UK):a digital strategy agency with e-Commerce expertise-COIN (Cyprus):an educational technology & knowledge dissemination company-CRE.THI.DEV (Greece):an NGO focused on action plans for local communities and SMEs-CTCP (Portugal):a VET centre supporting all companies of footwear cluster-ISC (Germany):a research centre supporting the footwear industry-TUIASI (Romania):a higher education institute researching in footwear-DANMAR (Poland):a software development company and VET training centre ACTIVITIESThe project delivered a complete training program on cross-border e-Commerce for footwear sector SMEs,following a concrete methodology:-The first step was a comparative analysis of the current state of play between e-Commerce practices implemented by SMEs in partner countries and winning practices in countries outside the partnership.The aim was to identify the actual needs of the target group in order to form a training program tailored to them.-The next step was the validation of the needs by representatives of the target group in order to address and describe the learning outcomes forming the Online Sales Manager profile.-The training methodology and set of e-Commerce strategies were based on the validated needs.-To materialize the recommended strategies and support their implementation in real life,the partnership then developed the Online Sales Manager (OSM) modular course comprising hands-on actions linked to ECVET system with supporting tools.The course is implemented within the Online Sales Strategy Genie,a virtual environment that promotes personalized learning pathways at individual SME level and delivers the most important actions based on the user profile.-Together with the OSM,a personalized tool delivering a re-modeled course towards skills retention after the implementation of the actions was developed in a dedicated virtual space serving as a Learning Motivation Environment (LME) in order to complement the training program towards lifelong learning.15 trainers were trained upon the methodology and results in order to deliver the course in a blended-learning environment.All results were tested and evaluated during a piloting period before the final release.RESULTSThe main results of the project are: -OSM Training Content -ECVET supporting tools -Online Sales Strategy Genie -Skills Retention Service -BOOST4Shoes Academy LONG TERM BENEFITSSupported by the BOOST4Shoes Academy,a virtual space developed for the sustainability of the training program,SMEs are able to implement all recommended strategies ensuring sound e-Commerce practices,improving sales’ performance through enhanced cross-border capabilities and capacity to respond to new trends and consumers’ needs,increasing EU’s SMEs competitiveness within a global market.ACRONYMS-TPM: Transnational Project Meeting-LTTA: Learning Teaching & Training Activity-ME: Multiplier Event-IO: Intellectual Output-PQP: Project Quality Plan