Training in vocational skills of SBA Group’s executives and employees in adaptation to the changing market environment and implementation of modern solutions (SBATRAIN)

SBA Concern — one of Lithuania’s largest business groups, operating across furniture manufacturing, apparel, business centres and energy — partnered with ProBaltic Consulting to design and implement SBATRAIN, a group-wide employee competence development project funded under the EU measure “Human Resources Development in Enterprises”.

The challenge

SBA’s rotation and career policy requires executives and specialists to move between companies within the group. That model builds versatile managers, but it also creates a constant, structural need for training: every rotation places people into new markets, product lines and teams. The group’s strategy review identified marketing, sales and human resource management as the areas where competence gaps were slowing the policy down.

What we did

ProBaltic Consulting helped SBA Concern select the right funding scheme for a project of this scale and mapped the actual demand and supply of the required training across the group. On that basis a group-wide training plan worth €540,380 was designed and an application prepared under the “Human Resources Development in Enterprises” measure.

The result

The project was funded and delivered: 700 employees from 9 companies of the SBA Concern group completed training built around the group’s rotation model — from marketing and sales to HR management. The investment turned a strategic bottleneck into a repeatable internal process: competence development aligned with career rotation rather than ad hoc courses.

Why it matters for other groups

Multi-company groups registered in Lithuania can use EU human-capital measures to fund structured, group-wide training — but the applications are assessed on evidence of real need. The SBATRAIN case shows the pattern that works: needs analysis first, then a training plan tied to business strategy, then funding.