Impressive start for the Local Enterprise Office in North Cork

IT is just over a year ago that the doors were opened on the Government’s initiative to integrate all services available for micro and small business, in the form on the Local Enterprise Offices.

The new Local Enterprise Office in Mallow was launched in May 2014 and since that date has been acting as the ‘first stop shop’ for small business in the North Cork region.

The Local Enterprise Office was established within Cork County Council and brings together the business services of the council and the expertise of the County Enterprise Board. The Mallow office is part of the Cork North and West LEO; the other office is in Clonakilty.

The Local Enterprise Office provides advice and referral to all of the state and enterprise agencies operating in the business sphere and through the connections with Cork County Council is at the core of enterprise policy for the county.

All of the existing Financial and Training services provided by the CEB are now being delivered by the Local Enterprise Office and these have been supplemented by several new initiatives that are outlined in a brochure being distributed with this paper this week.

The past year has seen impressive results for the Cork North and West Local Enterprise Office. A total of 164 jobs have been created in LEO assisted companies and numbers employed in these projects now stands at over 1,300 people.

The LEO delivers a full range of training and development programmes and during the past year over 1,200 people have participated in these core programmes. These range from the staple Start Your Own Business to Management Development, Marketing, Exporting, Food Development, Online Trading and HR. Several other specialist

Sean Sherlock, Minister of State at Department of Foreign Affairs with Special Responsability for ODA, Trade Promotion & North South Co-Operation Ireland South with Kevin Curran, Assistant Head Of Enterprise, Michael Hanley, Head of Enterprise and Joan Kelleher, Business Advisor, Cork North & West Local Enterprise Office at the official launch of the Cork County Local Enterprise Office Brochure on Monday. Photo: Sean Jeffries Photography

programmes were also delivered including Procurement, Investment and others.

Seminars and Networking are a key feature of the LEO offerings and these range from Womens Networking events to Export Opportunities and speed-networking for small business. Over 58% of those attending core training are women, in line with the LEO objective of encouraging more women to enter business.

Chief Executive of Cork County Council, Tim Lucey, said that the council were very pleased with the clear benefits shown in the integration of the business services of the Council under the LEO system. “The results achieved in year one of the initiative show that the policy is clearly working and that real jobs and added value is being created for business,” said Mr Lucey.

“We have a diverse economy in the North and West of the County and the projects seeking assistance from the LEO reflect this diversity.

“Our support services have been built upon the experience of the needs of the entrepreneurs that we deal with and we are constantly evolving these services to take account of changing requirements. The LEO’s integration with the Council presents a new range of benefits and opportunities.

“The council plays a leading role in driving economic development and is a key player in servicing the needs of planning and infrastructure, in particular. The Council’s economic fund is there for a wide range of groups and projects and supplements the services of the other economic agencies.

“The further benefits of integration will become clear as the economic development plans of both the County and the agencies are implemented in the years ahead,” added Mr Lucey.

As well as the financial assistance packages provided by the LEO, which can assist in the form of priming and business expansion grants as well as feasibility studies, the LEO has been the conduit for a number of other initiatives of Government over the past year.

Trading Online Vouchers to encourage business to develop an online trading presence are available to all businesses in the region and the process is straightforward and simple.

Microfinance Loans for those who cannot obtain finance from their bank, is routed through the LEO and clients can obtain a discounted rate by applying in this way.

The highly successful competition for Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur will again be run the LEO this year and this is a space to keep an eye open for!

As a further acknowledgement of the key role of the LEO in the region, the Mallow office has been designated as a centre for the European Enterprise Network Service, which will result in an exciting range of services being available to companies with export ambition in the region. This service will commence operations in summer 2015.

“Many people associate the LEO with the financial packages available but there is a much wider range of services available to those who don’t fall into this category”, according to Michael Hanley, Head of Enterprise.

“One of the key strategies of the LEO is to bring training and services to each part of our region and to make it convenient for clients to attend events locally.

“We are fortunate that we work with an excellent network of training facilities throughout the region and these are now to a standard that can host a wide range of business training and information events” according to Mr. Hanley.

“We can provide help in a number of ways, to many businesses and we would encourage people to avail of the First Stop Shop facility at the office in Mallow”, he concluded.