Lean For Business
Lean into working smarter, not harder!
Lean For Business is designed to encourage clients to adopt Lean business principles in their organisations to increase performance and competitiveness. Lean is for all companies, regardless of sector – it is not just for manufacturing companies.
Lean tools and techniques are helping companies across the globe to address competitiveness issues within their businesses by building the capability of their people to identify problems, improve operations and create a more innovative organisation. In a nutshell, Lean is about doing things quicker, better and saving costs. Lean strives to remove waste and to continually improve a company.
So, don’t delay and join the 1,000’s of companies all over Ireland who have successfully engaged in LEAN business programmes and recorded significant gains, including:
- Productivity increases 20%
- Sales increases 40%
- Delivery adherence improvements 43%
- Product & Service quality improvements 30%
- Employment increases 11%
(Source: Government report)
How does Lean For Business work?
The first step is to talk to your local LEO. The LEO Lean for Business Programme runs across all 31 LEO regions. Up to 90% funding is available and the programme runs in two ways:
- One-to-Many – In this delivery method, one Lean Service Provider is selected by the LEO after tender and works with all the companies on the programme. There is an initial 1-to-2-day “Introduction to Lean” workshop followed by up to 5 half-day visits to the company.
- One-to-One – In this delivery method, the company itself selects the Lean Service Provider it wishes to work with on its project.
With both methods, the Lean Service Provider will visit the company, evaluate its processes, and speak with the company’s managers about challenges faced by the business and the improvement project opportunities to be carried out over several weeks. Several Lean tools and techniques will be applied as appropriate to the needs of the business and improvement project at-hand. Additionally, management and staff will be trained and mentored on Lean. At the end of the engagement with the Lean Service Provider, a final report, case study, and metrics, are sent to the LEO.
Eligibility
The Lean for Business support is open to small enterprises* (with between 1 and 50 paid employees) who:
- are not currently clients of Enterprise Ireland or IDA.
- are established and trading for at least 6 months, registered, and operate within the area of the Local Enterprise Office.
- are solvent as demonstrated in the financial statements supplied.
An enterprise will be eligible to apply for the Lean for Business support where it is:
- a company,
- self-employed individual or
- partnership carrying on a trade or profession, the profits of which are chargeable to tax under Case I or Case II of Schedule D by virtue of section 18(2) of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997 (TCA). Pay As You Go (PAYG) customers are within the scope of the Lean for Business support.
- Sporting bodies that carry on activities which would be chargeable to tax under Case I or II of Schedule D but for an exemption set out in section 235 TCA are eligible to apply for the Digital for Business support.
- Charities that carry on activities that would be chargeable to tax as trading income, but for an available tax exemption under section 208 TCA, are also included within the scope of the Digital for Business support.
- Businesses must have current tax clearance from Revenue. Businesses must supply a Tax Reference Number and a Tax Clearance Access Number to allow for verification of their Tax Clearance status on Revenue’s online portal.
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Note * A small enterprise according to the EU SME definition is a business that has an annual turnover or balance sheet total of €10 million or less. It’s important for applicants to consider the linked companies rule when determining if they qualify as a small enterprise. This rule requires applicants to include the data from any partner or linked enterprises when calculating their employee numbers and financial thresholds. This means that if a business is part of a larger group, it must account for the employees and financial figures of the entire group, not just the individual entity. Here’s a simple breakdown:
Autonomous Enterprise: If your business is totally independent or has one or more minority partnerships (each less than 25%), you use the figures solely from your business.
Partner Enterprise: If your business holds at least 25%, but no more than 50%, of another enterprise, or another enterprise holds at least 25%, but no more than 50%, of your business, you must add a proportion of the other enterprise’s figures to your own.
Linked Enterprise: If your business holds more than 50% of another enterprise or another enterprise holds more than 50% of your business, you must add 100% of the other enterprise’s figures to your own.
The intention of this EU regulation is to ensure that the SME status reflects the economic power of the entire group of linked enterprises, preventing larger businesses from gaining undue advantage from SME support programs. It’s a key part of maintaining fair competition and ensuring that support is directed towards genuinely small enterprises.
