We are the National Productivity Center - www.cnp.org.co (CNP for its name in Spanish), a non-profit organization of mix conformation located in Cali- Colombia, which main purpose is the transfer of management technologies to the Colombian companies and entrepreneurs in order to improve their quality and productivity. We are the leaders in Colombia in management productivity special services. We offer services of consulting, training, research and management resources in topics related with productivity, quality and competitiveness.

Since our foundation in 1995 we are working with advance management techniques to help the Colombian companies improving their results.

Origin
The Center came with the adoption of policies to liberalize the economy in the early 1990s and the direct knowledge of the Asia-Pacific countries experience, in which it was seen that the creation of the Productivity Centers allowed mechanisms to articulate macro policies and enable them to be made effective at the micro level (i.e. individual businesses), creating also new forms of articulation between capital and labor and allowed the latest management technologies to be adopted and adapted to the special characteristics of each country. As a result of this, a group of institutions in the Valle del Cauca Department and the Government created a Productivity Center in Cali in 1995.

 
Nature
The Center is a mixed-capital private-law organization with its own management and assets; it is a member of the National Innovation System and is recognized by the State S&T agency Colciencias as a Science and Technology Entity.

 
Structure
Following the experience of the Asia-Pacific Centers, the CNP Council is formed by basic stakeholders in society - workers, businessmen, government, the universities - who give it legitimacy, make it representative and provide support. The government representative is the Minister for trade, Industry and Tourism- The workers are represented by the super-union CUT; a number of universities, and business leaders from different parts of the country.

 
Learning Process
The technical capacity of the CNP has been developed with the technical cooperation program between the Governments of Japan and Colombia, under which the Japan Productivity Center experts have visited the country and more than 80 Colombian businessmen and consultants have been invited to Japan and Brazil for training and technology transfer programs.

Under the mutual representation agreement made between CNP and its Brazilian counterpart INDG - the largest provider of management technology in Latin America - CNP has broadened its portfolio with high-impact services for business productivity.

 
Mision
CNP´s activities focus on the need to help consolidate the Colombian Productivity Movement through the adaptation, development, application and mass application of the best management technologies for organizations in response to the challenges of economic integration and the liberalization of trade in our countries.

 
Leadership
CNP is the coordinator of the Colombian Productivity Centers Network, which contains nine institutions , which act jointly with Colciencias, The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism and the training service SENA. CNP is a co-founder of the Latin-American Productivity Network, which has members in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia. Costa Rica, Cuba. Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

 
Experience
As operator for south-west Colombia of the Business Development Program, executing USAID programs in Colombia, through the Carana Corporation, CNP is currently working with more than 150 SMEs.

CNP has been the executing agency for projects with CAF, Colciencias, Proexport, SENA, the Ministry, USAID, JICA, GTZ, ECLAC and others.
The Center has attended to an average of 150 companies a year since its foundation, in all parts of the country.

 
Differentiation
In Latin America only Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile and Colombia have created Productivity centers with some features similar to and based on the international pattern. Unlike the other institutions in the Andean countries with similar functions at sector level, CNP cuts across all sectors with a technological approach and a portfolio of its own services.

 
Sustainability
CNP generates its own sustainability based on the rendering of research services, coordination of programs. consultancy, training, promotion and representation.

 
Results
It is described in the table below some of the achievements and gains realized in recent CNP projects centered on productivity increases. The common characteristic is that none of them involved layoffs (as a matter of principle, CNP is aware that the increase in productivity based on the improvement of processes generates greater value than personnel cuts).