Boosting SME competitiveness – new webinar series supporting Irish businesses

Webinar entitled 'The Importance of Planning to Achieve Scale' airs on April 27. Stock image.

Conor O’Donovan

Supporting Irish-owned companies to achieve greater scale and expand their global footprint is a priority for Enterprise Ireland, and that means helping companies from the very beginning and offering them support throughout their journey.

A recent Enterprise Ireland survey of client companies that we work with found that Irish SMEs reported that they need support in addressing five key areas in order to increase business competitiveness in today’s challenging economic environment.

These key areas include accessing funding to scale their business; developing a resilient supply chain; support around skills and talent; and enhancing productivity, particularly around digitalisation. However, the number one key area that Irish companies have told us they need support with is sales and digital marketing.

To help companies address these challenges, Enterprise Ireland has developed a new Client Solutions competitiveness programme. This programme, which is running until October, includes a series of webinars and workshops delivered by Enterprise Ireland’s new Client Solutions Hub, and will cover a range of issues critical to SME competitiveness, such as supply chain management and digital adoption.

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Addressing challenges

Our Client Solutions Hub will deliver a webinar on The Importance of Planning to Achieve Scale on April 27 at 10am, and this will focus on the importance of having a clear growth process to help your business scale.

Research has shown digitalisation provides a huge opportunity for companies to boost their overall competitiveness, and on May 30th, we will deliver a webinar focused on ‘Digital Technology to Maximise Business Effectiveness’.

This webinar will provide insights on how to leverage digital technologies to increase efficiency, improve productivity, reduce operational costs, and improve customer experience.

The webinars are free to attend and are open to all businesses, including Enterprise Ireland and Local Enterprise Office client companies, and those that are interested in participating can simply register online.

There will also be a number in-person workshops held over the course of the year, with a fee to attend, and these workshops aim to help companies to address the impact of skills shortages, and to help Irish SMEs develop strong and sustainable recruitment and retention programmes. The next ‘Attracting and Retaining Talent’ workshop is taking place on May 11 in Limerick.

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Building success

The focus of this series is to help companies become more competitive in a global context, and we have seen how well this approach can work by making expert advice available in a very accessible way for busy company owners and executives.

In addition to the practical advice and supports, a key part of our programme is networking and the opportunity it provides for peer-to-peer learning. The webinars and workshops will feature guest speakers and companies who have faced similar challenges and are keen to share their experiences and advice.

To register for Client Solutions’ webinars and workshops, visit globalambition.ie/client-solutions-events-schedule​

Conor O’Donovan is Head of Global Communications, Strategic Marketing in Enterprise Ireland

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