Last March Demos won three contracts worth 27. 7 million euros over four years, following an invitation to tender launched by the European Commission. The group has begun its implementation.

These so called “domino effect” inter-institutional contracts cover three sectors:

• The development of the relational skills
• The financial sector
• Technical functions’ professionalisation

Jean Wemaëre, CEO of Demos, comments, “These contracts demonstrate our capacity to manage the great number of files of really important customers and confirm our position as the major training provider within the European institutions and more widely in Europe."

Demos’ main domain of intervention is without any doubt the most transverse and concerns the great majority of Europe’s 35000 civil servants.  Subjects to improve personal communication include business writing, managing conflicts and participating in meetings.  During the analysis of needs by the central training department, this was calculated at 16,766 days of training courses and consulting.  As a result this could be potentially considered as the most wanted lot. Demos is the only company contracted on these non-specialized themes which closely match its inter-company offer and the Individual Right to Training.

The financial domain is the one that Demos works for permanently because during the previous invitation to tender, Demos had already been retained to improve management of the risks, in-house audit, external audit and financial management.  This lot touches a strategic domain of the European institutions and requires confirmed experts.

Finally, the technical domain within the EU was mostly the object of very sharp training courses within specialised institutes. These themes of technical functions cover a wide variety of areas including, "The Management of the Drivers", "Basic Library Science" and "Welcoming Children in a Multicultural Context for the Centres of Studies and the Day Nurseries." For Demos, the implementation of this contract is an opportunity to widen its range of training courses in the technical sector and to enrich its consultants' network.

These new progresses consolidate the position of Demos as European leaders and training experts for international public institutions, as well as its capacity to manage training projects and large-scale consulting in a multicultural environment.   During the previous invitation to tender by the European Commission, which had taken place in 2002, Demos gained several lots for a global amount of 12 million euros.

Demos, a global player of professional training

The Demos Group is a global player of professional training.  Drawing on its business, which is continuing vocational training in all its forms (face-to-face, distance education and e-learning), Demos has developed complementary activities such as the consulting, outsourcing and individual accompaniment (coaching, outplacement).

The Demos Group had turnover of 78.3 million euros in 2007. Since the beginning of 2008, Demos acquired the Czech company Pragoeduca, one of the leaders of the professional training in Czech republic; the Swiss company MindOnSite ( MOS ), specialists in the e-learning and the publisher of MOS Chorus; and more recently the Hemsley Fraser company, one of the leaders of the business training in Great Britain.