Small Business Productivity

Howard Kent

We have developed a programme targeted at SME's employing between 10 and 50 people from both the manufacturing and services sectors to identify business and technology weaknesses and to recommend improvements in the form of a comprehensive report on the health and status of a business with key recommendations on: 1) business areas identified for improvement, 2) technology deployed (or not as the case may be), 3) proposed training for both senior management and employees.

The Programme is being piloted in the Dublin and Wicklow area and is heavily subsidised by FÁS. There are limited places available as we are coming towards the end of the Pilot Programme in these regions.

The Programme is designed, managed and assessed by individuals who understand what it is like to own and run a small to medium sized business. This is an excellent opportunity for forward thinking SME's to enhance their business and improve their productivity in an inexpensive and time effective manner.

Further information can be found at www.sbproductivity.ie or by e mailing Howard Kent at hkent@sbproductivity.ie

fintan

Hi Howard

How much staff time is taken up during the study?

How long do the studies take in general?

Any success stories you would like to share?

information

Here is a similar programme run by the enterprise boards
Cost €150

"The programme will offer a highly subsidised technology check-up to small business and help them to identify ways to boost their productivity and profitability through the better use of technology."

http://www.dceb.ie/opencontent/default.asp?itemId=275

drdre

Howard i just sent you a mesage through your website.Hope to hear back from you if you cna help in anyway.

Howard Kent

Thank you 'Information' for taking the trouble to respond. The two programmes whilst developed to drive productivity through ICT enhancement within an organisation are entirely different in terms of both input and output.

Under The County Enterprise Boards 'Health Check' programme, small businesses will be able to apply to their local CEB who will appoint an independent expert who will visit the business. Working with the owner/manager, the expert will carry out an assessment of the current technology usage in the business and will identify the key issues, strengths and weaknesses relating to the use of technology in the business. Based on this analysis, the expert will provide the business owner with a clear, action orientated and realistic strategy aimed at developing and deploying appropriate ICT skills, systems, hardware and software within the business with the objective of delivering real and sustainable competitive advantage. This programme effectively provides 1 day of professional input by the expert.

The SB Productivity Programme on the other hand provides 5 days professional assessment, 2 ½ days input by a computer expert and 2 ½ days by a business assessor. It is focused on companies with a staff level of between 10 and 50 and produces an output report which includes:
a) Detailed SWOT analysis on the organisation including a workplace SWOT of workplace practices,
b) Identification of key agreed business improvement strategies
c) Identification of key areas of concern and provides suggested recommendations for the agreed concerns under 10 separate headings Strategy, Sales, marketing, ICT, Human Resource,
d) A separate Analysis of Management Capability skill and staff ICT capability skills and agreed management training programme and Staff ICT training programme which will deliver best in class ICT Training
e) It includes a detailed training survey of all staff, an employee workplace survey and an owner manager 155 question check up tool which benchmarks the business against competitors. Finally, the report outputs a detailed training needs analysis for further training in Management and Staff ICT Training which is supported by a FÁS grant of 70 to 75% depending on your geographic area.

Clearly both initiatives provide excellent value for the Micro enterprise owner and the SME at a net cost of €150 and €500 respectively but they are quite different both in focus and output.