There was a time when Ireland lamented its apparent dearth of entrepreneurs. The theory held that economic growth was constrained by the State's lack of an entrepreneurial culture, and that a few more entrepreneurs were all that was needed to bring about an economic miracle.

Whether there are more entrepreneurs today than 20 years ago is a matter for conjecture: there are no statistics available to settle the debate. What is clear, however, is that Ireland has more successful businesses and fewer failures than it did 20 years ago and every year businesses in all sectors and of all sizes are creating more than 50,000 jobs. This remarkable growth has been generated - at least in part - by a new generation of entrepreneurs who have developed businesses from the ground up.

But if we are to copperfasten this economic growth we need to ensure our entrepreneurs have the skills and capability to meet the challenge of growing Irish business. The skills required to manage a thriving medium-sized enterprise are very different from those of a start-up operation.

There is a recurrent pattern to the early lifecycle of the typical Irish company:

it is founded by an entrepreneur with skills in a particular field such as sales or manufacturing;

the business grows and thrives in its early years but begins to suffer at a certain size;

the business grows to the point where the owner-manager's time is spread too thinly across the various functions - sales and profitability begin to suffer;

common to many owner-managers is an inability to delegate responsibility for key functions as the business grows.

Other noticeable problems during these early growth phases relate to a lack of expertise across certain areas such as personnel, finance or marketing. But asking owner managers to "go back to school" to improve their management skills is not an option in seeking a solution to this problem - they simply do not have the time.

Buying in the required skills is probably not appropriate either - it is likely the company will not have the resources to carry the additional overhead in the short term. The answer lies in helping the entrepreneur to improve management skills and address the problems facing him/her and the company.

In short, the answer is mentoring. Mentoring is not a new concept, in fact it goes back well over 2,000 years to ancient Greece. A mentor is a trusted adviser who listens and advises, giving the company the benefit of his or her business experience and contributing informed, independent observations to guide a firm in the decision-making process.

More importantly the mentor will challenge entrepreneurs, forcing them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses, thereby assisting them to develop and strengthen overall management skills.

Enterprise Ireland's Mentor Network is made up of a panel of mature, experienced business people from a wide range of industry sectors. Many mentors are leaders in their respective fields and all have volunteered their considerable expertise to the programme. When a company believes it can benefit from a mentor's services, one is appointed to it by Mentor Network on the basis of which mentor makes the "best fit" with the company.

Unlike a professional consultant, who often engages in a hands-on role within a company or is selling a business service, a mentor's role is wholly independent. As the relationship develops, the mentor will often become a "close confidante" and "sounding board", playing an important role in easing the loneliness and isolation felt by many entrepreneurs and owner-managers. To date more than 10,000 companies have benefited from a mentor's assistance.

A recent survey carried out among 60 companies drawn from the IT, consumer goods, services, food and general manufacturing sectors which had availed of the services of Mentor Network had overwhelmingly positive results.

Responding to the survey, 84 per cent of companies said they had experienced significant growth in their businesses since the mentor's involvement.

Examples of these positive changes included the opening up of new markets, selling into markets worldwide, successful product launches, more structured accounts, more efficient business planning, better personnel structure and processes, significant sales increases, major expansions, and survival instead of failure. While not all of these changes can be attributed to the mentor's influence, some 75 per cent of respondents said the mentor's impact had been significant.

In terms of company development, 78 per cent of respondents said things would have happened differently had a mentor's services not been available.

The overwhelmingly positive results point to the vital importance of programmes such as Mentor Network. Enterprise Ireland has responded by announcing an expansion of the programme to provide a service to 600 client companies in the coming year, up 30 per cent on 1999's level of 450 companies.

For entrepreneurs and owner managers who find themselves "hitting the wall" while trying to develop their companies, Mentor Network will lend a hand and impart knowledge and skills, at no cost to the business.

Pat Maher, development director, Enterprise Ireland. Mentor Network can be contacted at Enterprise Ireland, telephone: 01 206 6000