Call for business community to have their say on future Local Enterprise Office programmes
Carlow County Council’s – Local Enterprise Office is calling on members of the business community to have their say on what services the Local Enterprise Office will provide in 2021 and beyond. Business Owner Managers and key staff are being asked to invest a couple of minutes to complete a survey which will help map out the requirements of the various sectors in the County Carlow business community.
Carlow County Council’s Local Enterprise Office business support services are provided in partnership with Enterprise Ireland and annually invest significant funding in subsidized and free services which are designed to assist companies to operate, develop and grow. Training includes programmes in areas such as Digital Development, Management Development and new programmes such as the “The Profit Academy”, “The Productivity Hub” and the “The Business Box”.
Speaking about the importance of engagement with the business community, Cllr. Tom O’Neill, Cathaoirleach of Carlow County Council said “I always have had great admiration for people who start and develop their own business and in particular the resilience seen by our business community during the challenges of Covid and in the run up to Brexit”, the Cathaoirleach continued to say “listening is such an important part in Local Government and this survey provides us with the opportunity to hear from our business community and how they believe our services should be delivered into the future”.
Commenting on the importance of the Local Enterprise Office investing in the development of companies, Kathleen Holohan, Chief Executive of Carlow County Council said “we have seen time and time again that companies who invest in effective training and development for their key staff have achieved net results in terms of job sustainability and business growth and this is essential in these challenging times”. The Chief Executive continued to say “we have over 2000 companies in County Carlow and many of them are supported by the Local Enterprise Office. I personally look forward to our team working to design new programmes and services which are relevant for this community to achieve their objectives and grow”.
The operation of the Local Enterprise Office Capacity Development Programmes is managed by Pauline Hoctor, Senior Enterprise Development Officer who said “while we understand that many SMEs get bogged down in the daily operation of their business in our experience companies who strategically invest some time and effort in business development have achieved net results in terms of sales, employment and other opportunities such as availing of greater support from the enterprise support eco-system”. Pauline continued by saying “we would encourage people to invest their time in this process to ensure that our programmes are on point and designed with their business in mind”.
The survey can be found on https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CarlowCoCo
