Enterprise Ireland
Annual Report and Accounts 2005
Annual Report and Accounts 2005
To compete in the global economy, Irish companies need to develop a position of sustainable competitive advantage. They are faced with tough competition, not only from innovative market leaders but also from low cost economies such as Eastern Europe, India and China. Strong productivity levels are directly linked to high levels of competitiveness.
A central aim of Enterprise Ireland is to enhance the competitiveness of Irish companies by tackling productivity issues. The target for this area is to implement productivity and competitiveness improvement projects in at least 300 firms by year-end 2007.
The Productivity Improvement Fund was launched in mid-2005 to assist clients in enhancing their competitiveness to improve their export potential. In less than six months, the Fund has supported projects in 39 companies. This support includes financial assistance for the purchase of machinery/automation equipment, technology acquisition and training of management and staff.
Supply Chain Capability Initiative: Effective supply chain management is a direct contributor to achieving competitive advantage. An initiative was launched in 2005 to assist clients to reduce costs and gain efficiencies in production, distribution and product delivery. Under this initiative in 2005, Enterprise Ireland invested €1.8 million in 32 supply chain enhancing projects in Food, Lifesciences, Engineering, Print & Packaging and Construction. In addition, two major conferences in this area were organised by Enterprise Ireland in conjunction with the National Institute for Transport and Logistics, IBEC and Inter Trade Ireland, involving 500 delegates.
Productivity through eBusiness: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) skills are essential to productivity and competitiveness. In response to the National eBusiness Strategy from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Enterprise Ireland developed the eBusiness Management Initiative in 2005. This initiative funds internal and external ICT training and one-to-one consultancy, leading to tangible contributions to business productivity and export sales. The initiative will run over two years (2006 - 2007) and has a participation target of 100 companies.
Eco-efficiency: Environmental productivity is an integral part of staying competitive, whether this involves environmental issues, policies, legislation or new product development. Enterprise Ireland supports clients with information and resources on its dedicated website www.envirocentre.ie, which received over 2.5 million hits in 2005, double the number for 2004. Four Regional Industrial Environmental seminars were held around the country with 108 attendees. Three sectoral seminars with 98 attendees were also held: two in Timber and Furniture and one relating to industrial solvents. As part of an EU-wide campaign to raise environmental awareness in the Electronics sector, Enterprise Ireland partnered with the Fraunhofer Institute to run The Business Benefits of Eco-design in Electronics conference with over 60 attendees. In addition, by the end of 2005, over 700 eco-efficiency audits had been carried out with clients, monitoring their performance over time on environmental improvements.
Technology Roadmap Seminars: Enterprise Ireland continued its series of seminars on current and emerging developments in high technology sectors. In 2005, four seminars covering consumer health technologies, mobile music and nanotechnology were attended by 265 clients.
