County Enterprise Support for your business

Published
by
John Hannafin
on July 24, 2008
in Business Support
. 4 Comments Tags: .

It has been a while since I have written a post - too long, way too long. To be honest I have been very busy and neglected my blogging completely. However, just a moment ago I was reading a blog post by Conor O’Neill that has spurned me into action again. I read a lot of Conor’s web writings and he is definitely a guy that gives back a lot of his entrepreneurial  and technology expertise and experiences to all who are willing to listen.

Conor’s post on the Argolon blog (a technology consultancy firm of which he is a director) highlights his frustration at the lack of business take-up on the Tech Check programme offered by the County Enterprise Board. I share Conor’s frustration and strongly encourage all eligible businesses (and that’s most) to apply. However, I am also frustrated with the County Enterprise Boards for not doing more to promote the programme. I work with quite a few small businesses in the jurisdiction of a few CEBs and I am always surprised at how few know anything about the programme and how it could benefit them. I would love to see a breakdown of the number of Tech Checks carried out by each of the CEBs.

Conor highlights some of the great work the CEBs do with regard to training and funding support (Feasibility Study, Small Exporters Scheme, eCommerce support). If I may, I would like to also encourage small businesses out there to look into the Innovation Vouchers scheme run by Enterprise Ireland. This is a great scheme that provides businesses an opportunity to avail of a 5000 Euro voucher to help them with an innovation opportunity.

According to the CSO (2007), in 2004:

  • 82% of industrial enterprises were small firms (less than 50 employees), accounting for a quarter of total industrial employment.
  • 98% of service sector enterprises were small firms, accounting for more than half of total service sector employment.

In addition, the CSO also reported that “small businesses in Ireland tend to have a lower and less sophisticated usage of Information and Communication Technologies than larger enterprises” (Central Statistics Office, 2007, pg. 43).

Furthermore 87% of small enterprises in Ireland are estimated as falling within the micro enterprise classification (Observatory of European SMEs, 2003, pg. 77) of employing less that 10 people and with these micro enterprises estimated at accounting for 52% of all employees in Irish small enterprises (averaging 3 per enterprise).

I think small, and in particular micro enterprises, deserve a lot more support, especially those that don’t fall under the Enterprise Ireland radar (and that’s an awful lot of enterprises).

Central Statictics Office (2007) Small Business in Ireland, Stationary Office, Dublin, Ireland.

New €60m growth fund for Irish SMEs

Published
by
John Hannafin
on April 22, 2008
in Business Support
. 1 Comment Tags: .

Staying with the theme of funding, Enterprise Ireland have announced a new €60m growth fund (up to €650,000 per SME) in the latest edition of The Market. The fund aims to

assist SME clients of Enterprise Ireland to achieve greater competitiveness by improving their export potential”

Eligable costs include:

  • capital investment
  • technology acquisition
  • recruitment of key managers
  • consultancy to assist with the implementation of the Growth Fund proposal
  • management development and
  • staff training

Support Limits:

 

Max. Funding

Funding Type

Min. Company Spend

Capital Investment

€300,000

Grant / 50% repayable

€75,000

Technology Acquisition

€300,000

Grant

€50,000

Training & Management Development

No specific limit

Grant

€25,000

Consultancy

25% of total project

Grant

n/a

Recruitment of Key Managers

€200,000

Grant

n/a

Workplace Innovation &
Management Development

No specific limit

Grant

€25,000

Overall Maximum Support for Submission

€650,000

The closing date for applications is the 3rd Thursday of every month (two calls have already closed), currently until the end of 2008.

More information, including eligibility criteria and funding levels, is available at http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/Grow/Finance/Growth+Fund.htm

Eurostars: Up to €750,000 funding available for Irish SME Research

Published
by
John Hannafin
on April 21, 2008
in Business Support
. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Eurostars LogoEurostars is an EU research fund available to SME’s in the Eurostars participating countries, of which Ireland is one. In Ireland the funding is provided through Enterprise Ireland who will fund up to 50% of total project costs, which typically have a total value of 1.5 million Euro.

The research project must satisfy certain criteria, some of which are:

  • The research must be collaborative which means that there must be at least two participants in the research project, from at least two different Eurostars participating countries (most EU member states plus some others).
  • The main (or lead) participant must be a “research-performing SME”, that is, invest 10% or more of full-time equivalent or annual turnover in research activities.
  • 50% of the research conducted by the project consortia must be conducted by SMEs (the remainder, for example, could be conducted by a research centre with a 3rd level educational institute, a larger organisation, a university, or indeed other SME’s).
  • The research must be aimed at the development of a new product, process or service.
  • The research project must have a maximum duration of three years, and within two years of project completion, the product of the research should be ready for launch onto the market

The next deadline for electronic submission of applications is Friday 21 November 2008 at 1700 CET. You can find out more information from Enterprise Irelands web site.

How accessible is Open Source to micro enterprises?

Published
by
John Hannafin
on April 10, 2008
in Opinion
. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Recently I have been working with an Irish micro enterprise who is looking to update their web site. The web site is relatively straight forward and the functionality required is “de-facto” standard for most online trading web sites. So I thought that this would be an ideal opportunity to encourage the use of an Open Source Content Management System (CMS).

The theory is simple. Having listened to a few web designers pitch their services for the development of the site it became obvious that all were suggesting the use of proprietary solutions to handle updating the site content. [Explanation: The site, at its simplest, is a set of web pages that need to be updated frequently with new content. All the designers were offering this functionality as part of their service. The designers had developed software of their own over the years that allow this functionality to be provided. The end result is that the site owner can edit the pages online.]

The issues with such a solution are:

  1. Who owns the software? What are the Intellectual Property issues? For example, can I modify the software, if I sell the business (and the site) can the buyer modify the software?
  2. The site owner is potentially “locked in” to using the designer for future updates.
  3. The site owner may be overly restricted in where they can host the site as the proprietary software that allows for online editing may require “uncommon” technologies.
  4. What happens if the designer goes out of business?

Open Source holds the promise of addressing most, if not all, of these issues, as:

  1. The software license for many Open Source products allow for the software to be modified and resold.
  2. Popular Open Source products have a large community of developers that support the product and thus provide a healthy market for product support.
  3. Many Open Source products use “ISP friendly” technologies.

The theory started to fall apart a bit when applied in the context of an Irish micro enterprise seeking to use an Open Source CMS. So where does it fall apart? Essentially the lack of an Irish based Open Source CMS industry. I found it very difficult to find Irish based developers who specialise in any of the popular Open Source CMSs. There are some out there but the list is short. Why do they need to be Irish based I hear you ask, because the enterprise developing the site would like to meet face-to-face with the developer, get a feeling for what they are like. The enterprise, and this is true for many enterprises, feel the need to tread carefully when investing in technology, not that they don’t appreciate its value but because it is something they don’t fully understand.

So what can be done to overcome this barrier to adoption?

  1. If the enterprise was willing to learn the skillset required to use (in the broadest possible sense) an Open Source CMS then there would be no need for the “middle man”. True, but most micro enterprises neither have the time, resources or inclination. It’s not part of their core business. Which leaves me wondering whether those enterprises who can take the Open Source product in-house and upskill are the ones who will benefit the most from Open Source.
  2. Train micro enterprises in the use of online communication and collaboration technologies so that they don’t feel a need to meet face-to-face with the developer. This would certainly open up a huge market for Irish micro enterprises.
  3. Encourage and assist Irish web designers to adopt Open Source products as part of their offerings. For example, here at Tipperary Institute we could offer training targeted at Irish web designers.

The use of an Open Source CMS is not without its disadvantages, but for the time being this choice simply isn’t available to most Irish micro enterprises.

Profile of EU SME’s

Published
by
John Hannafin
on April 8, 2008
in Reports
. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Recently I was perusing the slides from the launch of the EU Finance Day for SMEs initiative held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I found the following information interesting.

  1. There are 23 million SMEs in the EU (99% of all enterprises) and they account for about 75 million jobs.
  2. SMEs are defined as firms with less than 250 employees and annual turnover of less than €50 million and/or annual balance less than €43 million.
  3. Small enterprises are defined as having less than 50 employees.
  4. Micro enterprises are defined as having less than 10 employees.
  5. Main Business constraints for SME’s:
    • Purchasing power of customers(46%)
    • Administrative regulations (36%)
    • Lack of human resources (35%)
    • Cost of human resources (33%)
    • Infrastructure problems (23%)
    • Limited access to finance (21%)
  6. 70% of SMEs have no or few R&D activities.
  7. 20% of SMEs (termed “technology adoption enterprises”) adapt existing technologies.
  8. Less that 10% of SMEs (termed “Leading Technology Users”) develop or combine existing technologies on an innovative level.
  9. Less than 3% of SMEs (termed “Technology Pioneers”) have high levels of research activities.

Categories of EU SMEs

I am keeping a close eye on when the EU Finance Day for SMEs is going to happen in Ireland and I’ll post here as soon as I find out.

How you digest content is as important as the content itself

Published
by
John Hannafin
on April 1, 2008
in Opinion
. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

It never really struck me until I bought myself a Nokia N95. I won’t go into the technical wonders of this machine (but it is pretty amazing) but suffice to say that

  • it has the ability to connect to a wireless network (like your home network)
  • it has a fairly decent speaker on it
  • there is a podcasting application available for it

Prior to my purchasing the phone I tried to get into this whole podcasting thing (internet audio programs) but for some reason, that escaped me at the time, I never quite got it. I was able to find podcasts that interested me but I never enjoyed listening to them. I tried downloading the podcasts to my laptop, putting on my big headphones, and listening to them but it just didn’t feel right. I tried downloading the podcasts using Juice, a podcast receiver, and transferring the podcasts to my iPod, but again it just didn’t work - it was too awkward, took too much time, too much hassle.

Now, thanks to my N95, I can go home and press a button on my phone, my favourite podcasts get downloaded to my phone and on my way to work the next day I can listen to them using the phones’ speaker. All very simple, very convenient, hassle free and just works.

It was never about the content of the podcasts, that was always fine, it was how I was digesting that content that was the problem.

Strategy as a pattern

Published
by
John Hannafin
on February 27, 2008
in Business
. 1 Comment Tags: .

I recently had a conversation with a client who wished to develop a strategy for her team. She manages a creative team of people who she felt were looking for more direction. During the conversation we discusses strategy as a pattern  in which "strategy is consistency in behaviour, whether or not intended" (Henry Mintzberg, California Management Review, Fall 1987) and emerging strategies in which the "strategy can evolve in response to an evolving situation" (Henry Mintzberg, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1987). In essence, the pattern of actions her team performs defines their strategic direction. This approach to strategy definition suited the creative nature of her team and the constantly changing environment in which they work. So how was she to address their need for direction? Some team members were happy to work in an environment that was guided by high level goals yet others wanted more specific direction.

One approach we discussed was for her to essentially ask her team members what actions they feel the team should be pursuing and then to identify patterns in those actions and infer the strategic objectives. A problem she had with this approach was that it didn’t address the needs of the team members who wanted direction as she was the one who was asking for direction. In the end we settled on the following approach:

  1. She would reflect on and document the current, and past, activities the team is pursuing
  2. She would complement this list of activities with activities she felt the team should be pursuing
  3. She would identify patterns in the list of activities and infer strategic objectives from them
  4. She would present her strategic objectives and ‘action’ plan to the team for discussion
  5. She would incorporate feedback into the strategic objectives and plan
  6. She would "sanitise" the strategy by conducting an environmental analysis and a competitive analysis
  7. She would identify the core competencies and capabilities of the team
  8. She would document, as best she could, what it is the customer values
  9. Together with the team, she would refocus the strategy and plan based on her findings from steps 6, 7 & 8
  10. She would identify key performance indicators, measure performance using those indicators and regularly communicate back these performance results to the team
  11. She would use the regular meetings she has with each team member to capture new emerging strategies

The open source business model

Published
by
John Hannafin
on February 26, 2008
in Business
. 0 Comments Tags: .

Many people often find it difficult to get their heads around how exactly open source companies survive, after all they give their product away for free. Today, one of the largest open source companies in the world, MySql AB, was purchased by Sun Microsystems for a cool $1 billion. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun, in a great blog post explains the economic justification for the purchase. In it he quotes Marten Mickos, MySQL AB’s CEO, on his explanation of the open source business model:

the spectrum describing the marketplace spans those with more time than money, who form the user and developer communities around free software; and those with more money than time, who purchase commercial support contracts typically in more mature enterprises. To win in the long run, you have to win on both sides of the spectrum - with the same product. Crippling products, or sneaky licensing exceptions don’t work - freedom does

Jonathan himself says of both companies:

we both invest in very high quality free software and the cultivation of large communities, then turn our efforts to monetize at the point of value for companies that want commercial support

Now that’s what I like about open source - it is an understanding of what customers value. How many companies out there don’t know what their customers value and how many don’t even try to figure it out. Remember it is the customer that defines value, you as a business are simply required to create it.

How the world is adopting technology

Published
by
John Hannafin
on February 25, 2008
in Innovation
. 0 Comments Tags: .

A recent New York Times article discussed how American households spend their money. The article presented a graph on the rate of technology “consumption” amongst US households.

Consumption Rates NY Times

It shows, for example, that the Internet was adopted by just over 60% of households within a 15 year period (1990 - 2005), it took approximately 45 years (1927 - 1972) for the same percentage of households to adopt the washing machine, approximately 20 years (1927 - 1947) for 60% of households to adopt the refrigerator and approximately 10 years (1923 - 1933) for 60% of households to adopt radio. The graph suggests that while adoption of technology is taking less time, adoption rate is also linked to the consumers perceived value of the technology in question.

The World Bank’s recently released its Global Economic Prospects: technology diffusion in the developing world 2008 in which it documents that the rate of technology adoption in poor and middle income countries during the past century was far greater than that in “developed” countries (160%, 100%, 77% respectively).

TechAdoption-EconomicReport

With regard to the definition of technology achievement, the report describes it as:

a broad definition of technology and technological progress, one that encompasses the techniques (including the way the production process is organized) by which goods and services are produced, marketed, and made available to the public.

As for the reason behind the difference:

A sustained policy of increased openness to foreign trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), plus increased investments in human capital, have contributed to substantial improvements in technological achievement in developing countries over the past 15 years.

AdoptionFramework(Resized)-EconomicReport

Links to New York Times article, graph and Global Economic Prospects: technology diffusion in the developing world 2008

Internationalisation for SME’s is not optional

Published
by
John Hannafin
on February 22, 2008
in Business
. 0 Comments Tags: , .

According to a European project on Supporting the Internationalisation of SME’s (December, 2007),

SMEs that do not consider internationalisation are unknowingly self imposing a severe restriction on their potential for long term survival

According to the report, the barriers SME’s face with regard to internationalisation

are a lack of financial resources but most of all lack of skills or skilled human capital to tackle internationalisation

The report recognises the important role technology has played, and continues to play, in breaking down borders and facilitating globalisation. It also makes an important observation; even if you as an SME decide not to trade internationally, and instead concentrate on your domestic market, you must still be able and willing to compete with international SME’s that target your market.

Therefore, a pro-active attitude to global competition and markets is increasingly becoming not a choice but a matter of necessity.

It is not just access to new markets that is driving SME’s to internationalise but also access to technology and, not surprisingly, those SME’s that do internationalise have shown a greater capacity to innovate.

So what are the drivers?

  • The “international orientation of decision makers”, which is, more often than not, the owner/manager.
  • The size of the SME.
  • The industry/sector to which the SME belongs to.

Interestingly, although the research indicates that international firms are more productive, this is not limited to firms that export. Firms that import are also international and have equally demonstrated increases in productivity.

Finally, seeing it is something close to my heart,

In relation to SME competitiveness, for the vast majority of companies there is a large potential for innovation in operations and management, including the acquisition of IT and quality systems and capabilities. To further highlight this point its is important to remember that “marketing” entrepreneurs will go international before “technical” entrepreneurs and that innovation at plant level is not a guarantee per se of improved or increased performance. In this sense, greater use of the possibilities offered by IT and support for greater use of ecommerce and CRM systems (just to mention two examples) point one way forward and can be the most relevant innovation strategy for small companies, crafts and services.