All Facts. No Noise - Practical Help to Navigate Brexit
 

Cross-border trade and business development body, InterTradeIreland, is hosting a major event in Titanic Belfast, Tuesday 24th October 2017 aimed at helping businesses start planning for Brexit.

 

There is still time to register for the free half-day event hosted by the BBC’s Mark Simpson, featuring Dr Vincent Power, a partner at A&L Goodbody in Dublin, and an expert in EU law who will draw delegates attention to the key things they should be looking at as negotiations proceed.


 

InterTradeIreland launches practical Brexit planning event for businesses

 

  • 98 per cent of businesses don’t have a Brexit plan
  • InterTradeIreland’s  ‘All Fact: No Noise. Practical Help to Plan for Brexit’ brings together an expert panel.

 

Cross-border trade and business development body, InterTradeIreland, is hosting a major event in Titanic Belfast, Tuesday 24th October 2017 aimed at helping businesses start planning for Brexit.

 

There is still time to register for the free half-day event hosted by the BBC’s Mark Simpson, featuring Dr Vincent Power, a partner at A&L Goodbody in Dublin, and an expert in EU law who will draw delegates attention to the key things they should be looking at as negotiations proceed.

 

Attendees will benefit from practical workshops on the potential impact of changes in areas such as Rules of Origin; taxation, VAT, human resources and customs, as well as panel discussions featuring Northern Ireland businesses that have started planning for Brexit.

 

Renowned international business speaker, David Meade, will also deliver a keynote address on tackling challenges such as Brexit with a positive mind-set.

 

Ken Nelson, Chairman of InterTradeIreland, said: “Our latest All-Island Business Monitor highlights 98 per cent of local companies have no plans in place for Brexit and we’re committed to offering firms practical support to start preparing. Brexit will become a reality and now is the time for firms to prepare for different scenarios that might emerge.

 

InterTradeIreland launched its Brexit Advisory Service in May 2017. This bespoke service offers help and assistance for SMEs including a £2,000 Brexit Start Planning Voucher, which allows individual firms to work with an approved panel of experts to devise a tailored action plan. 

 

As well as advice on topics surrounding Brexit such as currency hedging and information on cross-border supply chains, InterTradeIreland has developed a comprehensive database of all goods traded cross-border on the island of Ireland. This covers thousands of individual product categories, and businesses can access information on possible tariffs for products, should certain customs duties be introduced.

 

“While businesses may have experienced minimal impact due to the impending Brexit at this point, this may not always be the case and companies need to be prepared. At the event, InterTradeIreland will be discussing our recent World Trade Organisation tariff report findings, highlighting the importance of contingency planning for firms on both sides of the border to prepare for any barriers to exporting.

 

“We appreciate that the lack of clarity around Brexit is complicating planning efforts, with our latest Business Monitor highlighting uncertainty is making it difficult for more than three quarters of local businesses to plan.  However, now is the time for firms to take the steps to make sure they are ready for Brexit and we are already seeing a marked increase of companies actively seeking guidance on Brexit matters.

 

“Planning for Brexit is a complex process with the potential for many repercussions so InterTradeIreland has devised content to suit all businesses no matter what stage they are at with their Brexit plans.  I would encourage local SMEs and stakeholders to find out about how InterTradeIreland can help their Brexit planning and sign up for this free event at

at www.intertradeireland.com/brexit-belfast-event/,” Ken added.

 

 

Major Brexit Event - 5 Dec, Croke Park, Dublin
 
InterTradeIreland, the cross-border trade body, is hosting a major event to help businesses gear up for Brexit in Dublin on 5th December 2017.

The event will be of particular interest to SMEs across all sectors, the professional advisory community and industry stakeholder and representative groups.

 


InterTradeIreland, the cross-border trade body, is hosting a major event to help businesses gear up for Brexit in Dublin on 5th December 2017.

The event will be of particular interest to SMEs across all sectors, the professional advisory community and industry stakeholder and representative groups.

WHAT CAN ATTENDEES EXPECT?

  • Practical advice on specific Brexit-related issues such as rules of origin, tariffs, non-tariff barriers and the movement of people.
  • Up-to-date insights from a leading economist on the impact of Brexit on the business community.
  • One-to-one support will be available at tailored workshops and clinics led by experts.
  • Information on the Brexit Advisory Service.

Plans are in progress for further events in the Munster and North West regions in early 2018.   

Spaces can be reserved by e-mailing brexit@intertradeireland.com. A Full Programme will be added shortly.

Horizon 2020 Health & Connected Health Information Day
 

The Horizon 2020 Health & Connected Health Info. Day will be held in Belfast on the 14th of November 2017.

This is the launch event for the final Horizon 2020 Health, Demographic Change and Wellbeing work programme 2018 – 2020. This is the first time the European Commission has a 3 year work programme and it is the largest funding opportunity in the programme to date.


The agenda and registration page are available at the link: www.tinyurl.com/Horizon2020NI    

 

 


Scottish launch for Co-Innovate Programme for SME Support and Innovation
 

Supported by the European Union, Co-Innovate seeks to support SME innovation and growth in areas of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. 

 

It will bring together the three regions’ key development agencies to deliver a programme aligned with each government’s strategic priorities, led by InterTradeIreland in partnership with Enterprise Northern IrelandEast Border RegionLocal Enterprise Office in the border region, Scottish Enterprise, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.


Supported by the European Union, Co-Innovate seeks to support SME innovation and growth in areas of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. 

 

It will bring together the three regions’ key development agencies to deliver a programme aligned with each government’s strategic priorities, led by InterTradeIreland in partnership with Enterprise Northern IrelandEast Border RegionLocal Enterprise Office in the border region, Scottish Enterprise, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Launching Co-Innovate in early September, Irish Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD, said: “This is a very positive development for SMEs in our border counties. Supporting SMEs is a key strategic priority for the government and it’s crucial we continue to encourage and nurture innovation.

“Initiatives like Co-Innovate are central to this goal, providing one-to-one help and mentoring for smaller companies to help embed a culture of innovation in their businesses. I would like to acknowledge the work and contribution of the partnership of organisations that have come together to establish this important funding programme for the border region.”

The Scottish element of the programme was launched on Monday 18th September in Dunstaffnage near Oban by Scottish Government Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland’s Place in Europe, Michael Russell MSP.

Commenting on the initiative, Minister Russell said: “SMEs play a crucial role in Scotland’s economy, particularly in many rural and fragile areas where they have an additional role in strengthening community resilience. Innovation, the development and commercialisation of new ideas, is key to the success and growth of these businesses, so it’s vital that we continue to support and encourage this.

“That’s what Co-Innovate is all about and I very much welcome its launch today in Scotland. I also welcome the partnership approach being taken to its delivery and the opportunities this will create for cross-border collaborations.”

Taking Care of Business: Free advice and information for businesses
 

Taking Care of Business: Free advice and information for businesses

 

30 State bodies and services ready to give expert help

 

Register now at www.takingcareofbusiness.ie. for free-half day event in Dublin Castle on November 8


30 State bodies and services ready to give expert help

 

Register now at www.takingcareofbusiness.ie. for free-half day event in Dublin Castle on November 8

 

 

A free one-stop-shop event for SMEs, ‘Taking Care of Business’, will take place on Wednesday November 8 in the Printworks Conference Centre in Dublin Castle; this half-day event is for those who own or manage a small business or are thinking of starting a new business. 

 

A range of State offices and agencies will give short presentations and will have staff on hand at exhibition stands to answer questions about key regulations and what assistance is available to your business. Areas covered will include:

  • Tax, employment and Health & Safety obligations
  • Legal requirements for setting up and running your business
  • Supports from enterprise agencies

 

The half-day event will be opened by Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Frances Fitzgerald TD and also addressed by Minister of State for Trade, Employment and Business, Pat Breen TD. Information stands will be open throughout, allowing you to speak informally with staff from each of the bodies attending.  There will be three sets of presentations chaired by: Mary Rose Burke, CEO of Dublin Chamber; Linda Barry, Assistant Director of the Small Firms Association; and Dr Donal de Buitléir, Director of Public Policy.ie

 

To find out more about this unique event and to register, please visit www.takingcareofbusiness.ie. Attendance is free but early booking is strongly advised as numbers are limited.


 

Go-2-Tender Workshops Coleraine
Go-2-Tender is an InterTradeIreland programme which has been developed to give SMEs the confidence, knowledge and practical skills to tender successfully for public sector contracts in their own jurisdiction and on a cross-border basis.
Go-2-Tender is an InterTradeIreland programme which has been developed to give SMEs the confidence, knowledge and practical skills to tender successfully for public sector contracts in their own jurisdiction and on a cross-border basis.

The programme is geared towards SMEs who are new to tendering or who want to improve their basic tendering skills.  The course consists of a two day workshop and a half day of mentoring.  This mentoring may be extended by up to 2 additional days and all mentoring is delivered by an experienced consultant to assist with tender development. 

The workshops will take place on 12th October and 26th Cctober 2017. Find out more course details below:


Day One

  • How to source above and below threshold contract opportunities
  • The bid/no bid decision
  • How the Public Sector buys (North and South)
  • How to assess opportunities using live examples
  • Electronic tender platforms (e.g. eTendersNI & eTenders.ie)
  • Success strategies for SMEs  

Day Two

  • How to become more competitive
  • Improving your document writing skills
  • Checklist of tender content and how it should be presented
  • Debriefing following tender competitions
  • Action planning for successful tendering

Registration


Registration begins at 9.00 and the programme wraps up at 17.00 on both days.

To register for the event, download the  Go-2-Tender Workshop Application Form (220 KB).  Once completed, email the form to laurar@envision-ni.co.uk

Cost

Go-2-Tender provides excellent value for money and includes training, materials, catering and mentoring.

The cost is £85 or €100 per person.

Introduction to Tendering Workshop
Limerick, 26th October

 26 Oct 2017

 09:30AM - 01:00PM

 Woodlands House Hotel, Adare

£/€ Cost€20


 
Go2Tender - Introduction to Tendering is designed to be a practical workshop, aimed specifically at small business owners that have never completed a tender before.

It aims to demystify the procedures around pitching for, and ultimately winning some of the ‘below threshold’ (i.e. below €25k) work that Local Authorities and other Government Bodies/Agencies contract out.

The workshop is also suitable for new start-ups that are looking into public procurement as a possible future option, and for those looking to pick up some of the very small contracts (e.g. work <€500).

Outline Syllabus

The workshop will cover:

  • Advice on Proposal Writing (‘proposals’ as opposed to lengthy ‘tenders’)
  • Responding to ‘below threshold’ work (i.e. below €30k) required by NI public bodies
  • Specifically, proposals for work below the €5K threshold will be covered
  • How to simply and easily respond to a ‘mini competition’ by email
  • Documents that may be required to attach to the email proposal
  • Finding tender opportunities – registering with the main sources of relevant tender opportunities for SMEs
  • The eTenders family of websites 
  • Case study examples of simple success stories
Introduction to new Horizon 2020 work programme for Societal Challenge 2
 

 21 Nov 2017

 10:00AM - 04:00PM

 Titanic, Belfast

Contact Carrie Gribben carrie.gribben@intertradeireland.com

£/€ CostFREE


 
InterTradeIreland, DAFM & DAERA are holding an introductory day to the new 2018-2020 Horizon 2020 work programme for Societal Challenge 2.

There will be a series of presentations from the NCP (National Contact Point) team and the European Commission followed by short breakout meetings.

We are Hiring

We now wish to recruit a Communications Executive (on a job share basis), to support InterTradeIreland’s communication function. This person will be responsible for the efficient and effective delivery of the body’s communications activities, as part of the wider communications team. For further information and/or to apply please:


Visit: www.intertradeireland.com/job_opportunities


JOB TITLE:Communications Executive (Job Share)

DIRECTORATE: Corporate Services

HOURS: 22.5 hours per week (Wed, Thurs and Fri)

GRADE: £15,315 per annum (Executive Grade) 

REPORTS TO: Communications Manager

SUMMARY OF JOB:

To support InterTradeIreland’s communications function, the communications executive will be responsible for the efficient and effective delivery of the body’s communications activities, as part of the wider communications team.

This will involve using both traditional and digital marketing tools, liaising closely with InterTradeIreland’s operational and policy teams, as well as the management of key service providers. 

 Job Description - Communications Executive (Job Share) (102 KB)

 Application Form - Communications Executive (Job Share) (62 KB)

 Information to Applicants - Comms Executive 2017 (117 KB)

Completed applications must be returned by 12.00 noon on Friday 27th October 2017                                           

(Email submissions on / before the closing date must be followed up by a signed hard copy version within 5 working days of the closing date).

Please return completed form to: Laura Dobbin, InterTradeIreland, The Old Gasworks Business Park, Kilmorey Street, Newry, Co. Down, BT34 2DE or e-mail laura.dobbin@intertradeireland.com

Why you should stop using Outlook for email marketing
 

At Campaignmaster we are repeatedly amazed at professional companies who send marketing messages via Outlook.

We often hear the reasons for doing this as being “it’s free”, “emails get through” or “it does the job”. This may be right to an extent, but you could be doing a lot more damage than you know if you send out mass marketing messages through Outlook. To help clear things up for you, we have put together the reasons why you should stop sending marketing emails through Outlook and use the right tool for the job.


At Campaignmaster we are repeatedly amazed at professional companies who send marketing messages via Outlook.

We often hear the reasons for doing this as being “it’s free”, “emails get through” or “it does the job”. This may be right to an extent, but you could be doing a lot more damage than you know if you send out mass marketing messages through Outlook. To help clear things up for you, we have put together the reasons why you should stop sending marketing emails through Outlook and use the right tool for the job.

Personalisation
When sending a marketing campaign to a bunch of people, it is common to address the recipient by their name, however this is not possible when sending mass emails through Outlook. Sound ESP’s (Email Service Providers) such as Campaignmaster will allow unlimited personalisation, where you can easily insert the recipients name and not just “Hello [first name]”. You can personalise any element of the email you wish from the sending details, to the body content and even change imagery depending on the recipient’s preferences.

Dedicated sending IPs
Your internal email system and even your website will be using a dedicated IP and domain. Would you want to risk that IP’s reputation and domain by sending mass marketing emails? At Campaignmaster, we provide dedicated sending IPs, which separate your marketing messages from your website and internal emails boosting your deliverability. So, don’t upset your IT department and keep them happy knowing that marketing are not reliant on them to provide extra bandwidth, manage any complaints or blacklisting of your website or internal emails – leave this to us.

Blacklists
Did you know that there are over 300 publicly available blacklists? See the definition of a blacklist here. To avoid ending up on any blacklist, we closely monitor each and every client’s sending domain and dedicated IP address.  Using a dedicated sub-domain solely for email marketing purposes means a blacklist wont impact your top-level website domain.

Now, you may be thinking, why does blacklisting happen? There are numerous reasons, including end-user complaints, so with so many backlists out there, is it worth risking your business-critical emails? We think not!

Attachments
The bigger your attachment, the higher the chance of that email getting blocked in Outlook, because attachments add weight to an email and some email content filters may have a maximum weight allowed to be received in delivered emails. In Campaignmaster you can upload files of various formats and link to them directly from your email, reducing its size and minimising the risk of it being blocked by Outlook. Furthermore, you can track who actually looks at the attachment.

Bounces
Bounces. No one likes them. They are a result of your email not being delivered to its intended destination. They can be classified as either hard or soft bounces and you can find out more about them here. Using Outlook won’t help you find or solve any bounce related issues whereas any reputable ESP can manage your bounces and as a bonus Campaignmaster will also let you know what the reason was for non-delivery too.

Opt Outs
So, if people want to be removed from your mailing list, how would you manage this? The process of managing opt outs should be as straight forward as possible i.e. not having to reply to multiple emails. With a powerful ESP you can easily manage your opt outs, (and instantly too), ensuring you don’t spam anyone keeping your mail list happy and complaint-free.

Authentications 
There is so much more to sending email marketing campaigns than just picking a ‘from’ address. The from address contains your sending domain, which should have a dedicated IP address – you get this automatically with Campaignmaster. Having a separate IP address for your marketing messages ensures your day to day emails and website domain remains safe from numerous complaints about your marketing emails.

You will also need several authentications or digital signatures to aid in deliverability including an SPF record (this tells the receiving server that the email is coming from the stated sender and not someone pretending to be you), DKIM and DMARC authentications. None of these will be available if you are sending mass mail from Outlook.

Spam Analysis
There is no way of predicting how inboxes will react to emails sent through Outloook, as you can’t run a spam analysis. For all you know, your emails could be ending up in junk folders, majorly affecting your reputation. Campaignmaster’s spam analysis tools gives you feedback for any spam points accrued to avoid hitting the junk folder.

Mobile Optimised emails
Reports tell us that around 68% of all emails opened in the UK are on a mobile device, so ensuring your emails are mobile optimised is a must! With Campaignmaster you can test your optimisation across various devices before you send it using our advanced rendering tools ensuring that your content is displayed right regardless of screen size.

Email Analytics
That email you’ve been working so hard on has gone out! Now what? Wouldn’t you want to know how your email was received, who opened it, who clicked on what link? You need to get those all-important statistics so you can send future emails more effectively and target your campaigns. With Campaignmaster’s detailed tracking and reporting, you will know within seconds how well your emails is doing.

Scheduled send
Don’t worry if you aren’t in the office when the email needs to go out. Schedule your campaign with specific time and date parameters, so even if you’re running late, you can make sure your email campaign isn’t.

If you are still not convinced, get in touch with us at info@campaignmaster.co.uk and we’d be more than happy to give you a guided tour of our platform. You can also sign up to our fantastic e-newsletter at www.campaignmaster.co.uk/receive-hintstips-updates full of great email marketing news and updates.

 
Disclaimer
Note: Links to third-party websites are provided for convenience only. InterTradeIreland is not liable for the content, availability or use of such third party websites and you use such links entirely at your own risk.