These practical courses are tailored to meet the needs of the entrepreneur and their employees operating in small businesses who require relevant skills to develop the business. The training schedule covers a wide business spectrum including financial, sales, marketing, human resources and management development programmes.

The Start Your Own Business Course is highly recommended for anyone considering setting up a new business. The overall aim is to help a new entrepreneur become ‘start-up ready’.  Typically, this programme runs over the course of 5 weeks focussing on how to prepare business plans, what market research and marketing tools are available, how to manage cash flow and making the most out of technology.  If you are setting up your own business for the first time, this is a practical course which will give you an understanding of all the requirements and challenges you are likely to encounter.

The Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny offers a number of financial management courses commencing in February with a computerise payroll course and later in the month with Sage accounts programme. A basic book-keeping and taxation course is also available for those will little or no book-keeping experience but interested in acquiring the necessary skills to set up a simple book-keeping system and understand the key elements of the Irish taxation system. A practical workshop on Costing, Pricing and Cashflow for the Small Business outlines the costs involved in getting a product to market, the factors to consider when pricing and how different terms of trading can impact on cashflow. 

There is a wide range of online marketing course available including the main social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.  Other programmes on offer in relation to sales and marketing include “Developing Successful Sales Techniques and Negotiation Skills”,  “Delivering Excellent Customer Service in the 21^st Century” and “Visual Merchandising & Identity Design for the Small Business”.

One of our flagship programmes the Owner Manager Development Programme for businesses established more than 3 years is due to commence in March 2017. It has been developed to assist build the management capacity of the small business and address, in a very practical way, issues that are hindering the business development and growth. Also the “Create Kilkenny” producer development programme will again run from March 2017. This programme is for small scale producers at an early stage of development who wish to develop new products or enhance existing products with the opportunity to exhibit under “Create Kilkenny” at Showcase 2018.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural nationally co-ordinated ‘Local Enterprise Week’ the Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny will again be running a series of events and training courses from March 5^th to 12^th 2017. An event to note in your diary is a presentation by John Finn, Treasury Solutions; on the topic of ‘Taking It to the Banks in 2017” Banking will be more challenging and there is a lot of uncertainty in 2017. This seminar will focus on dealing with the Banks with a special section on Brexit and aims to try to flag some issues regarding borrowings, interest rates, foreign exchange and prepare as many businesses as possible.

‘The Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny aims to assist small businesses in upskilling in areas such as Finance, Sales, Marketing including Online Marketing and Strategic Planning’ commented Fiona Deegan, Head of Enterprise. She further added ‘In order to achieve this, we provide a range of business support packages along with the training programmes including business information, advisory services, mentoring and financial assistance to meet the needs of owners managers  and their employees. If you are in business or thinking of starting one, you should contact the Local Enterprise Office to see how we can help.

The full training programme schedule is now available to view on the Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny website and online booking is available www.localenterprise.ie/kilkenny