We are pleased to announce that after a thorough audit, Cluster of Czech Furniture Manufacturers has received the ECEI Silver Label “Dedicated to Cluster Excellence” from the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA).

Cluster of Czech Furniture Manufacturers is currently the only one cluster with SILVER Label Certificate in the Czech Republic. The only better-ranked cluster in the Czech Republic is Nanoprogress, which has the ECEI GOLD Label.

Cluster of Czech Furniture Manufacturers Chairwoman Lucia Haraslinova said, "With the SILVER Label and substantial recommendations made by ESCA, we took another step to being a successful cluster at global standards. In the future we will use a better management mechanism to give better service to our cluster members in order to ensure that our members and our cluster can be more successful and competitive in the global market.”

The Silver Label Certificate is a quality certificate that opens new opportunities for the collaboration with other foreign clusters and confirming the successful implementation of the improvement processes that began after a benchmarking of the Bronze Label and demonstrates that it is on the path towards cluster management excellence.

The European Cluster Excellence Initiative has become a clear success story with the benchmarking and labelling scheme being extensively used in numerous countries. As of today, more than 1,100 cluster organisations from 45 countries have been benchmarked and/or awarded a BRONZE label, around 130 a SILVER label and more than 100 a GOLD label, respectively. Today, cluster managers and policy makers alike recognise the three ECEI quality labels as a credible “International standard for cluster management”. ESCA is a network of cluster experts from more than 30 countries and offers services in two areas:

• ESCA promotes cluster management excellence through benchmarking and quality labelling of clusters and cluster management organizations. ESCA has been mandated by the European Cluster Excellence Initiative (ECEI) to organise the assessment process.
• ESCA supports cluster policy makers and programme owners with advice on cluster programme development.