Shane Holland Design Workshops has been creating bespoke lighting, furniture and sculptural work since 1991. Its work features in airports, churches, hotels, private residences and public spaces.
It provides high-end customised items to architects and interior designers as well as individuals and companies, with a client list that includes Diageo, Ford and Boeing.
The award-winning company sells into the UK and already has a foothold in the German market but is keen to expand its footprint further afield, including through marketing itself on Archiproducts, the world’s largest online lighting and furniture platform.
Part of the reason for its desire to increase export sales is because Brexit has already had an impact on its UK revenues.
“We’ve already seen a hit from Brexit on our sales in the UK. They are about 10 per cent or 12 per cent of our turnover and have nearly collapsed – and we don’t expect them to recover for another while given the uncertainty there,” says Holland.
His first port of call for help growing exports elsewhere was his Local Enterprise Office (LEO – localenterprise.ie). "I filled out the Brexit scorecard and I went to one of the LEO Brexit seminars," he adds.
“I got to listen to some of the other businesses that were there and I got to listen to some of the experts, like the CEO of the Irish Exporters Association, who was very good in terms of just spelling out what the no-deal situation might mean for businesses in terms of customs and tariffs. The whole seminar was very useful and well-run.”
The company also received a LEO Technical Assistance (TAME) grant, which enabled it to attend trade shows in Europe.
“The UK market is still going to be there after Brexit and a lot of business will still go through London, but we’re also looking elsewhere so last year I went to Light + Building in Frankfurt after an absence of many years. It’s the biggest lighting fair in the world and is a part of our Brexit strategy,” Holland says.
Brexit uncertainty
Very many businesses are following suit. Enterprise Ireland’s 2018 report shows export growth to be up 7.6 per cent in the eurozone, and 5.5 per cent in North America. Despite Brexit uncertainty, UK exports were up 4 per cent, but crucially, the overall dependency of Irish exporters to the UK fell to 33 per cent, compared with 44 per cent just over a decade ago.
For businesses looking to diversify into new markets, or indeed to export for the first time, there are now multiple supports on offer to help.
The Brexit SME Scorecard online tool (prepareforbrexit.com) is a good first step in establishing how a business might be impacted by Brexit.
Developed by Enterprise Ireland, questions in the scorecard are built around six key business pillars to help SMEs self-diagnose how prepared they are. A comprehensive report is automatically generated to assist with planning and to highlight what further supports are available.
Both Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs offer export mentoring, one-to-one advice to help identify key areas of business exposure and to help identify potential opportunities.
For practical help coping with either a new UK trading regime as well as with non-EU countries generally, the LEOs offer a series of one-day Prepare Your Business for Customs workshops, providing businesses with “how to” advice about export and import procedures, tariffs and goods classifications.
Enterprise Ireland (enterprise-ireland.com) offers an online Customs Insight course too, which helps businesses understand the key customs concepts and the documentation and processes required to move goods from, to and through the UK, plus the options from Revenue to make this process more efficient.
Efficiency is key right now, particularly as exporting costs more the further away you go. Both LEOs and Enterprise Ireland have a number of lean business training initiatives, to train staff up in a practice designed to help eliminate waste and boost competitiveness.
Lean Business Ireland (leanbusinessireland.ie) provides information on a range of lean programmes offered by Enterprise Ireland, LEOs, and the IDA. As well as innovation benchmarking, Enterprise Ireland offers best-practice study trips, a peek inside world-class companies that are implementing lean business principles.
They enable first-hand experience of lean best practices and processes, along with solid and practical examples that participants can apply to their own businesses.
Lean for Micro is a programme that has been adapted by Enterprise Ireland for LEO clients to help small businesses boost their competitiveness, increase performance and profitability as well as build resilience within their companies.
Under it, companies get five days of consultancy with a lean expert who will work with them to introduce lean principles, undertake a specific cost-reduction project and assist the company in benchmarking its performance.
The Technical Assistance for Micro-Exporters (TAME) Grant, which Shane Holland received, helps a business to explore and develop new export market opportunities, such as participation in international trade fairs and development of export-related marketing materials and websites. It’s a matched funding scheme offering up to €2,500.
Ecommerce offers another cost-efficient way to enter new markets. The Trading Online Voucher Scheme, an initiative under the Government’s National Digital Strategy, can help. Again, matched funding of up to €2,500 is available, plus training and further supports provided by Local Enterprise Offices. The money can be used towards digital marketing strategies, e-commerce websites or app development.
New markets bring new challenges; products and packaging may need to be tweaked – or transformed – in order to appeal to a new customer base. Enterprise Ireland’s Agile Innovation Fund has been developed to support product, service and process innovation of the kind which can help build competitive advantage.
With Brexit bearing down, speed is of the essence for any new exporting initiatives. Enterprise Ireland’s new Agile Innovation Fund has a simplified application form and delivers a faster response time than other programmes. The fund, which is open to clients of both the LEOs and Enterprise Ireland, allows companies to access up to 50 per cent in support towards innovation projects with a total cost of up to €300,000.
Soft supports
Enterprise Ireland has soft supports too, including an exporter development programme, workshops, a market research centre for access to in-depth market research, plus a range of country-specific market access guides available online. It also runs a highly respected International Selling Programme for C-suite executives, through TU Dublin (formerly DIT).
Breaking new markets is a soak on resources, often putting pressure on cash flow. It's worth noting that Local Enterprise clients get a 1 per cent reduction off the interest rate for unsecured loans of between €2,000 and €25,000 from MicroFinance Ireland (microfinanceireland.ie).
For larger businesses, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland's Brexit Loan scheme (sbci.gov.ie) is the way to go. Delivered through the pillar banks, it offers loans of up to €1.5 million (unsecured up to €500,000) at a maximum rate of 4 per cent. The money can be used for future funding capital requirements, or to fund the innovation, change or adaptation required to mitigate Brexit risk, but not to refinance existing loans.
Cross-border business development agency InterTrade Ireland (intertradeireland.com) has a Start to Plan Vouchers scheme offering SMEs advice and guidance to help navigate their way through Brexit. These offer 100 per cent financial supports of up to €2,250 towards advice on anything from movement of goods, labour and services, to customs, VAT and currency management.
The Irish Exporters Association (irishexporters.ie) has a range of services for members, including in-market advisory services and exporting skills development.
The European Commission’s Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), can also help. It is the world’s largest support network for small- and medium-sized enterprises with international growth ambitions. It is active in more than 60 countries and helps businesses find expert advice, source technologies and identify trusted business partners overseas – including distributors, agents and resellers.
It can be accessed via Dublin Chamber (dublinchamber.ie), which has a wide range of practical export and international trade services too. These include help with visas for business or transit travel, export documents, information on export regulations and customs requirements, certificates of origin and other commercial documents.
