New Connections - Department of Taoiseach

UpdateEnterprise Ireland (EI) held a series of major conferences to highlight e-procurementtrends amongst major OEMs and their Irish suppliers in 2002. The Business LinkagesDepartment and the e-Business Unit of Enterprise Ireland will continue to promote thistopic where specific opportunities arise, through workshops and individual companyadvice.(4.5) Business DevelopmentETEEnterprise Ireland will continue to support clients under the EI Business DevelopmentModel:-• Innovation- the Technology Development Advisors will assist companies to identifytheir requirements and will call the relevant expert services within and external to EIto meet that need.• Operations - the Benchmarking and World Class Business services will address theissue of eBusiness in their work with companies. In addition eBusiness projects willalso be eligible for subsidy under the proposed Competitiveness Fund• Human Resource Development - the training advisors in the HRD section assess theeBusiness skills needs of companies and put together the appropriate interventionfrom EI and external resources• Enterprise Ireland to provide developmental support for new and existing companieswho are developing and supplying hardware, software and servicesUpdateThough the eBusiness Acceleration fund is now closed, the dissemination activitiescontinue via seminars, case studies, guides and a book/CD. All of these draw on theexperiences of companies supported under the Fund and provide a unique guide toeBusiness adoption. The dissemination activities are managed by Enterprise Ireland'seBusiness Unit which also maintain a website http://www.openup.ie/(4.6) Chambers of Commerce SME project• To build e-business capacity within small and medium sized businesses primarilythrough training and awareness programmesUpdateIn early 2002, in light of the lack of urgency among SME's to prepare for e-business dueto reasons that were documented at the time, the focus of the programme changed toaddress the perceived irrelevance of e-business among decision makers. Instead ofdeveloping an e-business strategy through a time consuming training programme, the e-business development executives worked one-on-one with owner/managers to identifysynergies between their business objectives and ICT. Through that process thebusinesses developed an e-business action plan and training needs were thus identified.The Chamber e-Business Survey 2002 demonstrates that while Internet penetration haslevelled off:ETE35