I have now completed the programme, which was one of the best I ever participated in. The practical information and advice given by Blaise, along with the shared expereince of the other participants on the programme was certainly very powerful.

I had intended sharing some of the valuable ‘nuggets’ I picked up over the 6-months duration of the programme. Unfortunately, I did not keep my promise but not to worry - you will be glad to know that Blaise has actually done better – he has published his book “You are the limiting factor,” which captures and documents the entire content of the programme and much much more.

The book is available in all good bookshops at the moment. And you can hear from Blaise himself at a celebration to mark the publication of the book to be held on Thursday 23rd July next @ 6.30pm in the Arboretum Lifestyle and Garden Centre, Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow.

This event is being held in conjunction with the County & City Enterprise Boards in the south east region that have delivered management development programmes (MDP) run by Blaise over the past 10 years or so. Past participants of the MDP will be in attendance but all are welcome. You should mark it in your diary – especially if you are interested in participating in the next MDP!

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

The Kilkenny CEB is delighted to partner with the Credit Union in combining our resources in the delivery of the Scheme. As you know, the CEB provides supports to assist the start-up, development and growth of small businesses.
We have found in recent months that the biggest challenge facing small business is cash-flow.

The vast majority of our clients, with the slow-down in the economy, have experienced falling turnover and margins, and this has been compounded by the added pressures of getting paid on time and accessing appropriate forms of credit.

Most of these businesses, while still profitable are struggling to survive due to lack of working capital - to pay the bills, to pay the wages, to pay suppliers, to take on new orders – in short to keep the business going. Cash is the lifeblood of all business and without cash-flow they cannot survive. The slow-down in the availability and movement of cash is now a critical issue for small business right across the country.

I would like to share with you just one or two headline statistics from a Credit Survey undertaken by the national network of CEBs recently. 56% of clients report difficulty accessing finance (in the form of overdrafts; term loans; bridging finance; etc.) with very serious implications for their business; and 76% report that debtor days have increased in the last 6 months. This is a double-edged sword.

I attended a workshop hosted by Minister Billy Kelleher on Monday afternoon last dealing with issues arising in relation to access to credit. This provided an opportunity to highlight the concerns and pressures being created as a result of the credit crisis in the small business sector, while at the same time hearing the views of the banks. The fact is that there would not be a need for schemes such as that launched by St Canice’s Credit Union if the banks were providing the service to small business. I know from chatting with the Minister after the event that he will be very interested in the operation of the Scheme in Kilkenny.

The small business sector is the future of this country. With the decline of Foreign Direct Investment in the years ahead, we are going to have to rely more and more upon our own capacity to create and grow indigenous small businesses to create jobs and to drive our economy. But we need to create the right environment and that requires all of us who interact with small business to be more creative in providing new forms of support to encourage and help small business.

Right now there is undoubtedly a gap in the market for the supply of credit. And the St Canice’s Kilkenny Credit Union have demonstrated tremendous initiative in responding to the challenge and putting in place this Scheme to help fill the gap here in Kilkenny.

The Scheme will help provide much-needed credit to a wide range of people:
• from those at start-up stage with viable new business ventures – giving them the finance they need to start their business;
• as well as existing businesses who remain commercially viable but are experiencing difficulty in accessing the necessary finance to meet their day-to-day working capital needs.

The Scheme combines a package of supports derived from the main strengths of the Credit Union and the CEB. The Credit Union will provide the loan finance under the Scheme, while the CEB will assist in 2 key areas:

• first we will help people make application to the Scheme. This will include providing advice and support to applicants in preparing the support documentation they will need, such as business plans and cash-flow projections;

• second we will provide an after-care service to all successful loan applicants, through the range of business supports we have to offer, including the appointment of a Mentor from our extensive panel of professionals to assist applicants to implement their plans and grow their business, as well as with cash-flow management.

So we hope that in working in partnership with the Credit Union and combining our resources that together we can provide through this Scheme a much stronger support package and give businesses the best opportunity for success.

This is very much a pilot Scheme. The process will evolve over time as we try to get it right for everybody concerned.
But our hope is that the Scheme will be a success, and that in time it will become a model for other Credit Unions throughout the county and indeed elsewhere throughout the country to partner with CEB network to roll out similar partnership initiatives, because they are very much needed at this time.

I have no doubt there will be great interest and demand generated in the Scheme. We look forward to working with the Credit Union and more importantly we look forward to hearing from small businesses out there. If you would like to hear more about the Scheme, give us a buzz on 056 7752662.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

Hundreds of people availed of our ’business advisory’ service and many more received basic information and advice from the CEB during the year.

Some 500 entrepreneurs participated in enterprise training programmes organised and delivered by the Board in 2008 – programmes aimed at improving the management capability of participants. These ranged from sales & marketing through financial management to computerised accounts.  

70 people participated in the Board’s Start Your Own Business (SYOB) Programmes, which is aimed at giving participants an introduction to all of the main issues encountered when starting up and running a business from researching and planning their idea through to compliance issues and financial projections.

A further 151 people availed of the Board’s Mentoring service, which provides owner-managers with a temporary business advisor to help them identify and overcome obstacles in their business. Demand for this service increased in 2008, and this can be attributed mainly to the new set of challenges that many of our clients are now facing.

33 people were supported with Technical Assistance catering for specialist and customised supports (e.g. Specialist Training Assistance; Trade Fair Assistance; Market Visits; etc.), while another 33 businesses were supported with a Tech Check Audit, which is aimed at helping small businesses maximize their use of the latest technology available for the development of their business.

The Board approved financial assistance totaling almost €600,000 to 28 businesses in 2008. 18 of these were new business starts and the other 10 were expansions of existing businesses.

These projects have the potential to create an additional 72 full-time job equivalents when fully implemented. This brings the total number of projects assisted by the Board since its establishment to over 680 and the total number of jobs created to almost 1,100.

The Board continued to sponsor the Student Enterprise Awards in second level schools, with almost 300 students participating (www.studententerprise.ie).

We organised another very successful Enterprise Week in October, 2008 in conjunction with local business networks and partner organisations, including the Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce, FAS, Failte Ireland and Kilkenny Local Authorities. We also piloted the enterprise bus, bringing the services of the Board to some of the smaller towns and villages around the County (in June) and to local shopping centres (in October.) The Board also drafted and launched our enterprise strategy for the next 5 years.

While the period ahead is undoubtedly full of uncertainty and the focus of our clients is very much on survival, the onus is on you to engage with the Board and avail of the services on offer. If you are in business then we are here to help you in any way that we can.

I have posted on nuggets being picked up through my participation in our management development programme currently running and being delivered by Blaise Brosnan. Well we have invited Blaise to deliver the first of our lunchtime seminars this year – ‘Assessing Your Business Health’ today in the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny. This FREE seminar will help you understand how to identify the issues that impact on the health of your business in the current economic climate. I hope to see some of you there.

Sean.
www.kceb.ie

The Irish economy began to change dramatically during the year after 15 years of sustained and unprecedented growth. There was a significant slowdown in the economy, the main causes of which are attributed to varying degress to a combination of: downturn in the construction sector and the housing market; the slowing of the US economy; the appreciation of the euro against the US dollar and British sterling; declining tax revenues; and the increasing cost of energy prices.

The Irish Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reported that in 2008 the Irish economy experienced a recession for the first time since 1983.

The onset of the recession is also reflected in the public finances. From an overall budget surplus of circa €5 Billion in 2006, the Government incurred a deficit of circa €8 billion in 2008.

This is the economic environment that businesses and in particular micro-enterprises are now operating, and this situation is compounded by the current credit crisis.

A national online survey of a representative sample of CEB clients (mainly owner-managers of micro-enterprises) undertaken in December 2008, of which there were approximately 1,000 respondents, revealed that:

· 54% of respondents indicated that their business activity is being curtailed at present due to Bank Credit issues (i.e. unable to access necessary overdraft facilities; term loans; bridging finance; etc.);

· 52% indicated that the banking situation is having either a serious or very serious adverse effect on their business;

· 31% reported that their business is at risk of closure due to lack of credit; and

· 74% reported that debtors and/or debtor days has increased, putting severe pressure on their working capital and cash-flow needs.

The national network of CEBs recently submitted proposals to the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment for the introduction of a range of new supports in order to be more responsive to the needs of our clients in these challenging times.

This included the introduction of a micro-credit scheme (i.e. Enterprise Loan Fund) as a response to the growing credit crisis adversely impacting upon micro-enterprises.
We shall keep you posted of developments.

Sean.
www.kceb.ie

 ”initially understand and then challenge and empower our existing potential to significantly increase our performance capability, so that our objectives can be achieved.”

Well to date, Blaise has certainly been provoking us all to have that ‘felt-need’ to change the way we currently manage our businesses and do things more effectively and efficiently. I would like over the course of the next few weeks to share (briefly) some of the many nuggets of advice imparted.

The Programme has been running one night per week (Wed evenings) since last September and will run to the end of next March (2009).

According to Blaise – the ‘job’ of all owner-managers of small business is to: first of all decide what needs to be done; then cause it to be done; while all the time measuring what is being done. I think this sums it up rather well.

It is critically important to measure business performance - have key performance indicators (KPI’s). If we don’t have KPI’s – how do we know we are succeeding, or how do we know what action needs to be taken? Furthermore – “What gets measured gets done!”

But its just as important to have the right measures. Business performance must be judged on output rather than activity, otherwise we could all become busy fools!  For example, contacting potential customers by telephone is an activity but conversting calls into actual sales is output.

And we need external measures (be able to benchmark performance against others), as well as internal measurements (e.g. comparing performance one week/month/year with last week/month/year; etc.)

Ask yourself – “what measurements or KPIs do I use in my business?” If you feel you need help to review how you currently manage your business, now might be a good time to contact us at Kilkenny CEB. Tel: 056 7752662. www.kceb.ie

Sean.

The ‘flagship’ regional event – the ‘Making Business Happen’ Conference was held on Thursday 16th October here in Kilkenny. There were almost 200 people in attendance. There was also an exhibition of agencies and organisations providing supports to entrepreneurs beforehand, so that attendees could get a chance to see what help was available. 

There was a great line-up of speakers - you can log into www.spiritofenterprise.ie for the podcasts of each of them. The conference was chaired by John Purcell, Managing Director of ‘KCLR 96FM’, and he did a fantastic job on the night.

The keynote address entitled ‘From Politician to Entrepreneur,’ was delivered by Ivan Yeats – the former Fine Gael politician who now owns the Celtic Bookmakers chain. You should log in to hear his speech in full – very sobering…

He began by giving a brief outline of how he first got involved in politics in his hometown of Enniscorthy, how he quickly moved up the ranks within Fine Gael, how he became Minister of Agriculture 1994-1997, and how he then decided to retire from politics because he just got bored with it all!

He went on to outline from his experience the traits of the most successful entrepreneurs, some of which I list here: ‘ability to listen;’ ‘ability to persuade others to do what you want them to do;’ ‘have passion and self-belief;’ ‘have determination and perserverance to succeed;’ ‘have courage;’ ‘attention to detail;’……

He imparted his own instructive advice to those in business, again some of which I list here: ‘make lists of everything you must do today, this week, next month, etc. and revert to them regularly to make sure that you are acting on them;’ ‘learn to say NO - but dont take NO for an answer;’ ‘preparation is absolutely key to success;’ ‘have clarity of purpose – know what business you are in;’ ‘business plans are important but get outside independent people to critique them;’……

He reflected on: how does one know if they will make an entrepreneur or not? – ‘if you could imagine you are on your deathbed and you would die with regret if you did not do it – then u know!’

He commented on the downturn in the economy and upon the recession BUT he finished on an optimistic note, with a number of predictions: ‘inflation will fall next year to around 1%;’ ‘the price of oil will remain low;’ ‘the price of commodities will continue to fall;’ ‘interest rates will be cut further;’ and ‘the Euro will fall in value against sterling and the dollar.’ However, he wasn’t taking any bets on any of his predictions……

The mood of the conference afterwards was very upbeat and in speaking with some of the delegates afterwards, it was clear that each of the speakers on the night had made an impact in telling their story and provided inspiration to others.

I can assure you that Enterprise Week is now a fixture in the calendar and I am already looking forward to improving upon our schedule for next year.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

Enterprise Week 2008 will be held from 13th – 17th October.

A regional ‘steering committee’ is in place, and local ‘operational committees’ comprising of the main agencies and organisations with a role and remit for enterprise, will be setting-up in each local authority area in the south east in the coming weeks.

This year the theme for Enterprise Week is “Make Business Happen.”

One of the main events this year will be a major regional conference for entrepreneurs to be held in Kilkenny. This is still very much in the concept stage but promises to build upon the very successful ‘Enterprise Supports Event’ organised by Kilkenny CEB as part of Enterprise Week last year. 

I will keep you posted on developments over the coming months.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

This is all very encouraging. However, as the Small Business Forum reported (www.smallbusinessforum.ie) access to relevant information and advice is hampering the number of small business starts. Many people considering starting a business are often unable to search through the wide range of available sources to access the right information they need to answer their specific queries.

The national network of CEBs provide a ‘first-stop-shop’ service for entrepreneurs and strive to provide as comprehensive a business advice and information service as possible. Notwithstanding this, the Small Business Forum found that a rising frustration among those seeking business information is that they may not be aware of where best to access it, with the result that they often resort to sourcing information that is ill-suited to their needs. The CEBs therefore have to constantly raise awareness of the services they provide and try to come up with new and novel ways of promoting and providing access to these services.

In an attempt to do just that, a number of CEBs (including ourselves here in Kilkenny) in conjunction with Bank of Ireland Business Banking, have come together to pilot the ‘Enterprise Bus’ initiative (www.theenterprisebus.ie). The objective of the Enterprise Bus is to provide the first free mobile advice centre to people thinking of setting-up or growing their business. 

It is hoped that the Enterprise Bus will make the services of the CEB more accessible to people either in business or considering setting-up in business. The Bus will visit hundreds of small towns and villages all over the country over the course of the next 10 months. With almost 19,000 new businesses setting up in this country in 2007, and a similar number forecast for this year, we anticipate that the Enterprise Bus will potentially be of help to as many entrepreneurs with business ideas as possible.

The Bus will provide support and advice to people in their own localities, from enterprise mentors and business advisers on all aspects of business, training available, business planning, accessing the right type of finance and guidance on other services available to enterprises.

The Bus will visit locations throughout County Kilkenny during the weeks commencing 2nd June and 6th October next. Full location details and dates of the Enterprise Bus as it travels throughout the country are available on www.theenterprisebus.ie.

The Enterprise Bus is certainly a novel initiative and should greatly assist us to promote the availability of our services to an even wider audience, as well as providing the opportunity for individuals and businesses to access the supports offered by the CEBs at local level.  So watch out for that Bus in your local area ….

I will post again on the initiative closer to the first week that the Bus will be in County Kilkenny.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

As we look ahead to 2008, I think it would be useful to first look back at 2007. I have provided below a mainly quantitative review of activity last year under some of the main CEB performance indicators under our 2 main Measures of support:

Measure 1: Grant-aided Projects

We received a total of 37 applications for grant-aid in 2007 (compared to 38 in 2006). 32 (or 86%) of the applications received were approved, 4 were refused (mainly on the grounds of being ineligible for financial assistance, lacking commercial viability or posing a risk of displacement) and a decision on 1 had been deferred pending receipt of additional information at year end.

Again as reported in a previous blog, we receive many more enquiries for grant assistance, but because of the extremely selective nature of the financial assistance we provide, the majority of these prove to be ineligible for support and therefore do not proceed to application stage.

The Kilkenny CEB has now provided grant assistance to almost 650 business projects since its establishment in 1993.

We awarded a total of €441,569 (compared to €425,370 in 2006) in grant-aid to the 32 projects approved, last year. The average grant of circa €13,850 demonstrates the relatively small-scale nature of the projects that we support (i.e. involving overall capital expenditure averaging between €25,000 to €30,000.)

10 of the projects grant-aided in 2007 are local services, 19 are manufacturing operations, 1 has the potential to become an Internationally Traded Service (ITS) and 2 are tourism projects.

23 of the projects are promoted by men, 8 are promoted by women and 1 project is promoted by a co-operative organisation. Some 24 of the projects supported are start-ups, and the remaining 8 projects have been assisted to expand their operations. 

The 32 projects approved have the potential to create an additional 60 full-time and 25 part-time jobs when fully implemented.

Measure 2: Information & Advice, Mentoring, Enterprise Training & Management Development Support (Soft Supports)

We invested circa €400,000 in soft supports in 2007, ranging from the provision of information, business advice and training through to mentoring, technical assistance and management development supports.  

A total of 58 Enterprise Training & Management Programmes were organised and delivered last year, amounting to a total of over 1,000 training days. Over 530 people participated in these Programmes and a further 210 clients received mentoring or technical assistance.   We also launched a very successful Enterprise Week from 1st to 5th October last year, which helped raise the profile of entrepreneurship and small business in the region.

For the first time ever, all 16 second level schools in County Kilkenny registered to participate in the Student Enterprise Awards competition for the 2007/2008 academic year, with almost 500 students participating in setting up businesses.

So as you can see from this brief account of activity, we were busy last year and we hope to continue the trend in 2008. So if you are in business or thinking about starting one, get in touch with us to see how we can help you.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

We now intend to establish a ’creative business innovation network’ of up to 18 companies and provide support to the network (e.g. facilitated meetings, structured techniques, etc.) for a period of 1-year initially.

 The business innovation network will have the following aims:

• To continue the delivery of training of established creativity techniques
• To use these techniques to support real business objectives and challenges
• To create a long-term support system between groups of participants
• To support each participant in his/her endeavour to create an innovative work environment

We had a very well-attended information session last week in the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny to launch this new programme and such was the interest that 18 companies subsequently signed-up to participate in the business innovation network from January of next year. 

Structure
The group of 18 companies will now be sub-divided in to triads (i.e. small groups of three people), and they will maintain communication and support each other to achieve their individual objectives throughout the course of the programme.

They will also ‘practice’ techniques learnt at Network meetings, to generate ideas for each other, to help each other overcome obstacles they face in their business and generally coach and mentor each other. They will also commit to pre-arranged conference calls or meeting up at least once between main Network meetings.

The Network Meetings
The Network meetings will take place once a month over the 12 months (i.e. total of 12 meetings). Each meeting will begin with a 30 minute feedback session, with one member of each triad reporting on the progress of his/her group.

There will then follow a 1½ hour session during which a new creativity / innovation technique will be introduced by the network facilitator. This will also be accompanied by an evaluation /decision making technique.

Participants will then engage in group workshops for circa 1 hour to practice the given techniques on relevant challenges chosen by the group.

This will be followed by 15 minutes of feedback, and finally 30 minutes of goal setting. (i.e. – participants will re-form into their triads and agree on their individual tasks and goals to be achieved within the coming month.)

During the programme the whole group will also be encouraged to work on a combined project such as a fundraising challenge for charity or other not-for-profit organization.

This is an exciting initiative and I am very much looking forward to seeing how the participants will benefit from the various elements of the network. I will keep you posted on progress.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie