Enterprise Ireland – Best Connected -

Dogs welcome is a strange introduction to the opening, next weekend, of the UK’s first new high street bank in over 150 years.   The newcomer is Metro Bank.   It promises to open seven days a week, including 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, have a rapid account opening procedure and issue credit and debit cards within 15 minutes.   For those with jars full of pennies it will also have free coin counting with the Metro Bank Magic Money Machine.  And off course “the bank will provide free bowls of water and chewy bones to ensure that your four-legged pals are as happy as you are”!  The initial plans are modest.  Two branches this year and twelve within the next two years.

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When most people think of the Green Agenda, factories billowing smoke into the atmosphere come to mind, however software too will soon come under Green scrutiny when looking considering Government contracts.

Trends
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In the middle of our doom and gloom a bit of good news is always welcome.   Intel last night reported its best ever quarter results in its 42 year history.  Year-on-year revenue up 34% and a net income of €2.9bn.  Why is this good news for us?   Well, Paul Otellini, chief executive, said that Intel was running ahead of a global economic recovery because of a fundamental shift towards working on the internet.   Sales of server chip were up 170% on a year earlier due to a move to hosting applications and services in the cloud.   ”As internet traffic continues to boom, the cloud build-out is accelerating in order to keep pace,” he said.

So the move to the cloud continues unabated and confirms what many of Enterprise Ireland’s software clients believe – that SaaS and the cloud are here to stay.

We should also not forget the 4,000 people who work directly for Intel in Leixlip and the many hundreds of others whose jobs depend on Intel Ireland.   This is great news for them.

For those of us of a certain generation it is hard to imagine that the Leixlip plant was originally established to produce the i486 microprocessor.   A breakthrough in technology, it had a 50MHz chip set with 8k of on-chip SRAM!!!

This is a guest post from Diane Roberts, National Director of the Halo Business Network (HBAN). The Halo business Network, seeks to connect Angel Investors, and technology companies.

News just out about  the Irish Business Angel of the Year competition ….the winner is … Brian Caulfield!

This is a guest post from Liz Fleming, formerly of Enterprise Ireland Madrid and Dublin. Liz now works for HBAN, the  Umbrella organisation for Angel Investing in Ireland.

As part of Ireland’s First Business Angel Conference , we at HBAN are running a Business Angel of the Year competition.

Angel investors in Ireland are a vital source of financing for new business.  This competition is run to highlight the importance of the strategic value a business angel can add to an early stage business.  Often the expertise a business angel can offer is more valuable than the financial contribution made by a business angel.  HBAN wish to promote best practice in Angel Investing and seek to professionalise the Irish Angel Capital Industry.  With this aim HBAN would like to honour Ireland’s Angel Investor of the Year and need your help in identifying Ireland’s Best Angels.

To date Brian Caulfield (@BrianCVC) and Colm Lyon (@ColmLyon) are top of the polls!  Nominate your Angel of the year here.

The winner will be announced at the HBAN Business Angel Conference taking place on June 16th. The current lineup of speakers include Leslie Buckley (Digicel), Paddy Holahan (NewBay), Feargal Ó Móráin (Enterprise Ireland) with Mark Little as MC.

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) run by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board is an absolutely vital and ground breaking mechanism by which businesses can bring their research and ideas to market through use of public procurement.

What it is & how it works
In a nutshell the SBRI is an initiative from the British government which identifies a specific opportunity or need within a government department.
(1) It then invites companies usually SME’s to enter an idea to fill that need. The ideas are then screened.
(2) The more successful ideas are then passed along to a feasibility stage which is fully funded to £100k for a period of 6 months.
(3) After this phase is complete then most promising ideas are selected and brought forward to a development and prototyping phase with limits of £1m and 2 years.
(4) This phase then leads to complete product which is ready for market and the competitive procurement process.

Benefits
The benefits are many. Companies who would normally not have a chance of winning contracts but who have ideas addressing specific needs are essentially given a completely funded mechanism to research and develop their ideas.

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Public Procurement has finally hit the big time! Enterprise Ireland’s multiple award winning publication The Market ran an article entitled “The Winds of Change in Irish Public sector Procurement” which focussed on the ever increasing drive toward reforming the way in which the Public Sector Procures and as importantly how they interact with the market.

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We are pleased to announce the resumption of the Go2Tender workshop series which has been designed and run on behalf of InterTrade Ireland by Bid Management an Irish company which specialises in tender consultancy for both the public and private sectors.

What is Go2Tender all about?
Simply put Go2Tender seeks to provide companies with the skills to successfully negotiate the complex tendering processes for public sector contracts over the space of two non consecutive days. If this was not enough there is then a subsequent half day of in company consultancy which can, in certain circumstances, be extended to three days at no extra charge. The consultant will take the client through an actual tender

They have been highly successful with participating companies winning over €18m worth of contracts in recent times. The Workshop only costs €105 and is fantastic value for money.

The sectors I have targeted for attendance at the event include (1) the various software areas, (2) clean tech, engineering and construction, (3) life sciences and (4) Business Services. Interest is very high so book ASAP to avoid being disappointed.

We are also planning to have an Enterprise Ireland representative present at each of the workshops so that we can discuss how we are assisting our companies to gain business in the public sector.

If you have an interest in gaining business in the public sector in The Republic or Northern Ireland and would like to attend please contact Louise Carroll by clicking the link or call (01) 441 7155 for an application form.

Dates and Locations:
(1) Galway: Clayton Hotel; 9th & 16th of June.
(2) Mullingar: Bloomfield House Hotel; 18th & 25th of May.
(3) Derry:The Everglades Hotel; 5th & 12th of May.

This case study is based on the correlation and analysis of 138 contract award notices that the HSE have posted on eTenders in the years 2008 and 2009. In total this study covers contracts with a declared combined total of around 640Million Euro for 2008 & 2009 for 89 contracts which declared their total value.

The HSE is Ireland’s largest procuring organisation which spends in the region of 4Billion Euro per annum on various goods, services and works. However less than 10% of this expenditure appears on eTenders due to various below threshold spends and recurring contracts etc.

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Irish payment processor Omnipay hits the news recently with a major award won at the European Card Acquiring Forum in Berlin. It was given to Omnipay due to their commitment to delivering “the most innovative services to acquirers”

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The Supply National SME Engagement Programme is sponsored by the National low value contract portal of the UK supply2.gov.uk. It forms part of a national strategy to increase SME engagement with the Public sector market worth around £175bn annually.

According to BiP Solutions nearly three quarters of all UK operating SMEs never or rarely tender for the 3,000 publicly tendered contracts available in the UK each month. – BiP Solutions

These workshops, designed to increase SME engagement with the UK public sector are delivered in each of the regions highlighted in the picture below and deal extensively with the following themes;
(1) Creating a Competitive Advantage
(2) Winning Business Through London 2012
(3) Understanding Pre-Qualification Questionnaires
(4) Effective Tender Writing
(5) Meet the Buyer (Details TBC)

These workshops are delivered by BiP Solutions on behalf of Supply2Gov and are charged at a flat rate of £75 each. 

HBAN are dedicated to promoting Angel investment and supporting the early stage entrepreneurial community in Ireland. They work to create an eco-systems that promotes and supports early stage investment market. They are also actively working to increase the number of Angel investors who are interested in investing in early stage companies.

HBAN also acts as a voice to Government, stakeholders, business and the media to promote the interests and needs of the Angel and early stage investment community.

HBAN have recently launched a new LinkedIn Group to support their work in matching Angels to Entrepreneurs. Take a look at the HBAN LinkedIn Group here.

Enterprise Ireland continues to assist client companies seeking commercial funding. As part of these efforts , over 100 venture capital investors from around the world met in November, with 31 leading Irish cleantech and software companies at the Enterprise Ireland International Investor Forum in London.  This is a key event in the annual calendar for some of the most exciting and innovative companies emerging in Ireland to showcase their businesses and present new and attractive investment opportunities to investors from the UK, mainland Europe and Japan.

This is the second year of the event, which has seen the numbers participating increase significantly.  At the day-long event the Irish companies make their ‘pitch’ to the investors, and will then take part in over 280 one-to-one meetings with individual investors to explore specific investment opportunities.  This is a real opportunity for the Irish companies to showcase the depth and quality of technology being commercialised from Ireland to established and respected global venture capitalists and other investors.  It is also an opportunity to broaden the international profile of both the Irish cleantech and software sectors.

Opening the event, Feargal Ó Móráin, Director of Innovation, Commercialisation and Investment at Enterprise Ireland said:

“This Forum is a very significant event in terms of forging links between Irish companies and the global investment community.  This is a key objective for Enterprise Ireland and we see it as critical to securing continued growth finance for innovative and ambitious Irish companies. The availability of equity finance is a fundamental requirement for the setting-up, growth and development of new knowledge intensive businesses and we see the international investment community as being a critical part of the funding ecosystem.  Enterprise Ireland has put significant effort into developing these links and networks across the international investment community and attracting this calibre of international investor to the Forum is an example of what can be achieved.”

The 31 companies participating in the Forum represent some of the best of Ireland’s cleantech and software innovators.  These sectors are expanding rapidly in Ireland and are generating new technology-based companies that can excel in world markets.  The types of businesses being showcased include new-generation bio-fuels, inventive solar solutions and technologies to harness ocean energy and deliver electricity to the on-shore grid.  There are also software technologies for energy monitoring and control, and a novel approach to manage household and industrial waste. Each of the companies participating at the event has demonstrated a focussed and committed approach to research and development.

A full list of the companies participating is available here (pdf)

Enterprise Ireland’s Tech Club is running an event on Social Networking for your business in Eastpoint on the 16th February. If you’re interested in attending, contact your Development Advisor, or get in touch with us here.

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As part of ongoing SAAS (Software as a service) transition programme,  Enterprise Ireland held it’s third workshop on SAAS Business models  in Bewleys hotels Ballsbridge, Dublin on Friday 15th January. This programme is being provided to 10 Enterprise Ireland clients through SaasPoint.

My notes  (part 4 ) from the session are below – Finance and Marketing. This post is one of four from the event covering Finance and Marketing, SaaS challenges and technology, Saas specific sales models and general SAAS Business principals.

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As part of ongoing SAAS (Software as a service) transition programme,  Enterprise Ireland held it’s third workshop on SAAS Business models  in Bewleys hotels Ballsbridge, Dublin on Friday 15th January. This programme is being provided to 10 Enterprise Ireland clients through SaasPoint.

My notes  (part 3 ) from the session are below – Technology and other challenges. This post is one of four from the event covering Finance and Marketing, SaaS challenges and technology, Saas specific sales models and general SAAS Business principals.

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As part of ongoing SAAS (Software as a service) transition programme,  Enterprise Ireland held it’s third workshop on SAAS Business models  in Bewleys hotels Ballsbridge, Dublin on Friday 15th January. This programme is being provided to 10 Enterprise Ireland clients through SaasPoint.

My notes  (part 2) from the session are below – business and sales models. This post is one of four from the event covering Finance and Marketing, SaaS challenges and technology, Saas specific sales models and general SAAS Business principals.

Business Models

• Hybrid model of combining one off large sales (traditional, non SaaS) and ongoing service sale will probably not work. Sales people will focus (due to targets and time) on the larger deals (allowing competitors to take your market from the bottom up). Very different to keep focus with the two conflicting mindsets.
• Salesforce.com ‘no software’ logo is not just to customers – it’s a statement of values for the company itself. In early days, Salesforce turned down opportunity to deploy on site due to the risk of confusing the company.
• Other traditional software vendors (named) have tried this mix and match approach and failed; the incentive is for the Sales People to ignore the smaller online sales which are vital to strategic customer success.
• Only way to overcome this ‘incentive effect’ is have common on-site (traditional) and online pricing – but would give a lot of pain with the onsite model.

Sales Mindset (big changes for traditional sales people)

• Sell over internet and phone – only meet customers when really necessary (e.g. travel to close)
• Company selling in person will not be able to support costs (remember Sales are low-ticket, although recurring)
• If not direct, too many people will claim commission on big sales.
• A hub based (direct) sales team (telesales) will allow processes to measure Sales metrics and allow to scale.
• Trial is both a Sales (as well as marketing tool).
• Key sales message is ’shared risk’ – if you don’t like it then you can stop at end of the contract. Means that sale may be 10 users intially, and take 18 months to build up to 200 users.
• Opex not Capex – no large upfront cost ; very good message in tight cashflow times for customer (but very hard on your own company cashflow).

As part of ongoing SAAS (Software as a service) transition programme,  Enterprise Ireland held it’s third workshop on SAAS Business models  in Bewleys hotels Ballsbridge, Dublin on Friday 15th January. This programme is being provided to 10 Enterprise Ireland clients through SaasPoint.

Friday’s session focussed on how your business model needs to change when moving to a SAAS business and was presented by Fergus Gloster of Thomond Technology. Fergus (LinkedIn profile) helped  Salesforce.com Europe grow from 3 to 700 people.

Saaspoint logo

My notes  (part 1 of 4) from the session are below. This post is one of four from the event covering Finance and Marketing, SaaS challenges and technology, Saas specific sales models and general SAAS Business principals.

Business principles around SAAS (aka How to sell something at $50 per user per month and make money)

Full notes and links below. Key Learning points

1. User Experience. User Experience. User Experience
2. iPhone currently the leader, revolutionized Mobile app sales, but market (and devices) evolving very quickly.
3. Good case for usage in Enterprise (cost reduction, growing use of iPhone platform in Enterprise, New channel to customers) but be flexible, be ready for the evolution.

The iPhone as an Emerging Enterprise Platform

1.15pm Wednesday 2nd December 2009
Venue – The Alexander Hotel Dublin .

The iPhone has captured significant mindshare since its launch in 2007, and in particular the application development model and the iTunes App Store, which has had over two billion downloads of over 100,000 applications.
There has been a move from games and other ‘fun’ applications to software companies looking to add mobile channels for their products. Enterprise focused companies like Intuition are developing iPhone applications in order to add to the value of their core product or service.

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