The Benefits of Delivering Business Mentoring to Small Business Highlighted

 

The Director of the BMW Regional Assembly, Mr. Gerry Finn has welcomed the findings from a business forum for small businesses, which explored the positive outcomes and experiences of companies a year after participating in the Business Mentoring for Winners Programme, a pilot initiative delivered by Líonra, the Higher Education Network in the BMW Region. This initiative was one of six pilot actions funded under the €1.8m BMW Region Programme of Innovative Actions managed by the Regional Assembly and sought to enhance the capacity of firms in the Region to translate their skills in information, knowledge and technology into market and economic opportunities through the provision of specialise mentoring by experienced business development experts.

 

The event which was held in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology on Wednesday 10th February brought together many of the 35 small firms and High Potential Start-Ups (HPSUs) companies which received grant assistance in 2009 under the scheme. Presidents from the participating Institutes of Technology  and NUI Galway were also in attendance alongside Industrial Liaison personnel from the colleges in the Region and representatives from the state enterprise agencies.
The event which was chaired by Mr Dennis Cummins, President of Dundalk Institute of Technology and Convenor of Líonra heard presentations from two beneficiaries of the programme - M Cor Technologies from Ardee in Co. Louth and E-Media an award winning multi-media company based at the Innovation Centre in Business Campus at GMIT. Both companies received strategic market research and business plan development supports and outlined how the Mentoring Programme helped stimulate sales potential and helped increase new product development potential in the year since.
The mentoring assistance helped M Cor Technologies increase its worldwide sales pipeline by a factor of five over recent months. The company has also recorded 2 million hits on its website since launching last year.

 

E-Media benefitted from the programme by focussing on new product development opportunities. The company has developed a new iPhone application – PocketAnatomy.com which can illustrate cardio and other medical images using a sophisticated technology. The company has also received media coverage from National Print media and radio. E_Media has also seen its revenues grow in recent months and is exporting now to 18 countries.

 

 Participants were also given an overview of the evaluation performed on the Programme by Alpha Omega consultants which pointed to the many successes of the initiative in the delivery of strategic, high added value, growth focussed mentoring   to predominantly technical high potential firms

Mr Finn added that

“the supports provided,  served to assist a broad range of emerging companies from throughout the Border, Midland and Western Region to gain vital business management and marketing assistance necessary to grow. I congratulate Líonra on the initiative”.