Support or Strategy?
When a state hands out support, two kinds of business appear. One takes the support. The other becomes a support hunter. Türkiye’s AI Action Plan opens a serious pool of resources: a two-fund financing ladder, SME vouchers, compute credits, sectoral pilot programmes, test grounds. Used well, this money accelerates growth. Used badly, it makes a business dependent on support. The line between the two is thin, and it gets drawn at the start.
The difference shows in one question. Would you have done this work without the support? Your answer is also this piece’s axis.
Why Is the Question Being Asked Now?
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- The pool got bigger
- Getting support got easier
- Economic pressure increased
- The consulting market grew
Four developments made the question current.
The pool got bigger
The volume allocated to AI is substantial. Funds, vouchers, credits, pilot programmes. As the pool grows, so does the chance of misusing it. With small support the mistake is small. With large support, a wrong direction costs years. The bigger the resource, the more selective you must be.
Getting support got easier
Application processes are simplifying. Digital platforms, ready-made packages, supplier matching. Ease is a good thing. But easily obtained support gets easily spent. Difficulty used to work as a natural filter. With that filter gone, you have to supply your own.
Economic pressure increased
A business under cash pressure starts seeing support as a revenue line. That is a dangerous drift. Support is not revenue. It is the cost of a specific piece of work, and you promise to do that work in return.
The consulting market grew
Where there is support, there is application consulting. Some of it produces real value and takes a business to the right door. Some of it just writes projects to fit whichever call is open. The second kind harms the business, because it ties your roadmap to the calendar of calls.
What Is Wrong?
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- “Free money”
- “A call is open, let’s write something”
- “If we don’t take it, we lose”
- “We got the support, the job is done”
Four assumptions corrupt the support relationship.
“Free money”
Support is not free. In return there are reports, monitoring, audits and commitments. It also carries a real time cost: application, reporting and audit hours add up. A voucher’s administrative burden sometimes exceeds the voucher itself, especially in small teams. Do that arithmetic upfront.
“A call is open, let’s write something”
The most common mistake. Designing a project to fit a call is like looking for a body to fit the clothes. Something always pinches. The work produced has no connection to the business’s real need, and the team never owns it. Unowned work does not last.
“If we don’t take it, we lose”
Fear of missing out produces bad decisions. Not every support suits every business. Turning down an unsuitable one is not a loss but a saving. The only thing lost is the time its management would have consumed.
“We got the support, the job is done”
Receiving support is a start. The real work begins the day it ends. Is the system still running that day? A project without a continuity plan runs while support lasts and then stops. This is the most common quiet failure. Nobody calls it a failure; the work just fades.
The Real Mechanism
A healthy support relationship rests on four questions, asked in order.
Who Is Affected, and How?
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- The business under cash pressure
- The healthy growing SME
- The technology startup
- The business that never took support
Four profiles, four different risks.
The business under cash pressure
The riskiest profile. Support looks like the answer to a cash problem. But support is usually paid after spending, or tied to specific lines and not freely usable. A business needing cash can get squeezed further during the process. The right order here is clear. Fix the cash problem first. Apply for support second.
The healthy growing SME
Where support works best. There is already a planned investment; support accelerates or cheapens it. The risk is scattering: applying to many calls at once and running none properly. The rule is simple. Run at most two support processes in the same period. A third slows both.
The technology startup
For this profile support means not just money but references and access. Compute credits, data access, test grounds, a public reference. The risk is bending the product roadmap to fit calls. Investors notice this too. A company that grows with support gets valued. A company that stands only because of support does not.
The business that never took support
Two reasons usually get heard: “it’s not for us” and “I can’t deal with bureaucracy”. Both are partly fair. Not entirely. Light instruments like vouchers and training programmes are designed for exactly this profile. Starting with a small support teaches the process and eases the next application. There is not much to lose either.
Decision Order
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- One: write your own plan first
- Two: match calls against your list
- Three: ask the four questions
- Four: write the continuity plan into the contract
The support decision takes four steps.
One: write your own plan first
What will you do this year, which work is priority? This list gets drawn up independently of support; the calendar of calls does not enter it. With the list ready, which support helps becomes self-evident. A business without a list mistakes every call for an opportunity.
Two: match calls against your list
Do not look at every call that opens. Look at those matching work on your list. If there is no match, skip that call. This takes discipline. But it is the step that saves the most time.
Three: ask the four questions
Would we have done it, what remains, who carries the burden, which rung does it reach? If you cannot answer all four clearly, do not apply. An unanswered question comes back later as a problem.
Four: write the continuity plan into the contract
What happens after support ends gets written at the project’s start. Who maintains it? At what cost? Who inside takes it over? Without that plan, the project ends when the support does.
Where to Start?
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- Draw up your annual work list
- Match the list to call tracking
- Name the burden owner
- Start with something small
Four jobs this month.
Draw up your annual work list
Independent of support, one page. This year’s work and its priority order. Keep it under five lines.
Match the list to call tracking
Check quarterly. Is there a call matching your list? The monitoring routine carries this job.
Name the burden owner
Reporting, documents, follow-up. Who does it? How many hours a week? If there is no answer, there should be no application. An ownerless application means an ownerless project.
Start with something small
Make the first experience small. Learning the process counts as preparation for a bigger application. Voucher programmes suit this well: small amount, short duration, instructive process. If you make a mistake, the cost stays light.
What Not to Do?
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- Having a consultant write the project
- Applying to many things at once
- Using support to close a budget gap
- Grieving over missed calls
Four traps.
Having a consultant write the project
Taking writing support is one thing; having the project built outside is another. A project that does not grow from your own need falls apart at first field contact. The consultant fixes the format. They do not define the work.
Applying to many things at once
Every application needs preparation and every support needs follow-up. A small business running three at once runs none properly. Reports get mixed up and deadlines slip.
Using support to close a budget gap
Support lines are specified and audited. Support used for another purpose creates legal risk. Reputational risk comes with it.
Grieving over missed calls
Calls arrive in waves. One that passes signals the next. The real loss is not the missed call. It is never having prepared.
A Solid Digital Foundation
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- The support-independent annual work list
- The four-question checklist
- The burden owner
- The continuity plan template
Four stones.
The support-independent annual work list
The reference against which every support decision is measured. Without a list there is no measure.
The four-question checklist
Asked before every application. Keep the answers written; accounting for them later gets easier.
The burden owner
Reporting and follow-up as someone’s assigned job. Unassigned support piles up on the owner’s desk.
The continuity plan template
Maintenance, handover, cost. Prepared once, used in every project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sık Sorulan Sorular
If the answer is yes, you are on the right track. Support here is an accelerator. If the answer is no, stop and think again. Doing work you would not otherwise do wastes both resource and time. A middle answer is also possible: “we would have, but later and smaller.” That is the healthiest answer of all. Support here is an accelerator, not an excuse.
What remains is the support’s real return. Will there be a working system? A team that learned something? Ordered data? Or only a report and a cancelled subscription? This question is the support-side counterpart of the rent-versus-title distinction. What lasts is yours; what is temporary belongs to the support.
Every support demands reporting. It demands documentation and follow-up too. Whose desk does that land on? In a small business it usually lands on the owner’s, and the firm’s most expensive hours go there. A business that does not budget for that burden cannot run the project.
Support is not a destination but a rung on a ladder. Where does this voucher take us, and what is the next step? Disconnected supports build no route; they leave scattered stops. The funding ladder is designed in rungs for exactly this reason.
No, that is exactly right. The purpose of support programmes is to accelerate and enlarge existing investment. Saying “we would have done it anyway” does not weaken your application; it shows seriousness. The problematic case is the reverse: work done only because support existed.
Decide with the administrative burden included. A rough measure: is the net benefit clearly higher than the value of the hours it will consume? For light instruments like vouchers the answer is usually yes. For large funds with heavy reporting, the answer for a small business is not always yes.
Taking support does not by itself put you ahead; doing the right work does. A business doing the wrong work with support falls behind one doing the right work with its own money. But this is also true: if two businesses do the same work and one uses support, the cost advantage sits with them. So the order never changes. Right work first, suitable support second.
Suitability rests on three things. Scale: can your business carry the application and reporting burden? Stage: at idea stage you want a voucher, not a fund; once productised, the reverse. Field: is the support in your sector’s priority list? If all three align, apply. If one does not, waiting for the right call is more profitable.