Trade knowledge / Enterprise Ireland Helps Irish Companies Connect With The World
Date: 2016-11-11
Enterprise Ireland Helps Irish Companies Connect With The World
What comes to mind when you think of Ireland? Medieval castles. Verdant hills. The Blarney Stone. And business, of course.
Time and again, Ireland has been ranked as one of the easiest places in the world to do business. A magnet for multinational corporations, its skilled workforce, minimal bureaucracy, and low corporate tax rates have attracted hundreds of global enterprises looking to set up operations in Europe.
But the country isn’t solely focused on providing fertile ground in which giants like Intel, Google, and Pfizer can thrive. It’s also going all out to support homegrown businesses.
Through Enterprise Ireland, the State business development agency, Ireland supports its businesses as they venture beyond the Emerald Isle’s borders. With nine regional offices, and more than 30 international locations, Enterprise Ireland’s reach is extensive. But it’s the multi-pronged approach to business development, tailored to each company’s needs, that probably does the most to help its clients realize their ambitions.
Coordinated teams, meant to anticipate their needs as they grow, consult with Ireland’s up and coming SMEs to help them win international business.
“In Ireland, we have a team of business and specialist advisers,” says Maureen Barry, Market Advisor in Construction, Engineering & Cleantech for Enterprise Ireland in London. “And they work with colleagues such as myself who are part of Enterprise Ireland’s international office network.”
The mission is fairly straightforward. “Everything we do is premised on two things,” says Maureen, “our clients growing exports sustainably, and increasing employment in Ireland.”
And, indeed, the Irish unemployment rate has been dropping for steadily for three years to levels approaching the pre-2008 crash. While Enterprise Ireland doesn’t take all the credit, when you look at the growth in its companies’ cross-border sales, it’s easy to imagine that such efforts were at least a part of the story.
The agency’s client companies posted an average 10 percent increase in exports in 2015, with several sectors, including technology, construction, and manufacturing, exceeding that rate, sometimes significantly so.
Enterprise Ireland is particularly focused on innovative businesses that are just getting off the ground. And there’s a practical reason for that. “Start-ups account for two-thirds of all new jobs created,” says Maureen.
Maureen says that when Enterprise Ireland tailors its support for companies, it takes into account more than just opening up sales opportunities. “We’re looking at how we’re going to get companies to scale faster. We spend a lot of time understanding our clients’ challenges, in relation to their size and stage of growth.”
This means the planning process is geared to ensure that a client company has everything it needs to live up to its long-term potential, while, of course, meeting the business’s own objectives.
“If you have a high potential start-up, you might be interested in establishing a UK reference site,” she says. And, because she’s based in London, and knows the market landscape, she can help the business establish itself in the new environment, and steer it down the most productive roads.
She points out that the aim isn’t just to win new business but to encourage repeat sales and new partnerships by fostering long-term relationships with their clients’ customers.
While Maureen focuses on connecting Irish companies with UK exporting opportunities, other market advisers might work with the same company in different markets. But the UK is often an Irish SME’s first foray into global waters—although that is gradually changing especially considering the UK’s recent vote to leave the EU.
“The UK is a significant market for Irish companies and it is often a springboard to tackling more geographically and culturally challenging international markets.”
“The Brexit vote has significant implications for our exporters to the UK and we are working with them to deepen their involvement there while also providing additional support for our longer-term strategy of developing new international markets. We’ve launched a major promotional campaign themed, Global Ambition, to help get that message across.
“We’re also helping all our clients to become more competitive and innovative. Ireland is among the global leaders in innovation with massive R&D support network and even though it is already a huge part of the Irish economy the Government plans to invest heavily in this area in the coming years,” Maureen says.
In addition to one-on-one assistance, Enterprise Ireland offers a number of grants, awards, and other financial supports to help companies across all sectors.
Its High Potential Start-Up team, for example, provides financial and other support to innovative Irish start-ups that are likely to create 10 jobs in Ireland and realize €1 million in sales within three years.
Other programs designed to help SMEs grow into successful global players provide mentoring, incubation space, networking, access to third-party investment, and direct cash infusions.
All that sounds great, if you’re Irish born and bred. But what if you’re not? Enterprise Ireland’s Competitive Start Fund provides capital to international entrepreneurs willing to base the business in Ireland.
The agency is also responsible for attracting food businesses into Ireland and marketing the country as a study-abroad destination through its Education in Ireland initiative.
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