Getting our heads around State supports can be tricky at the best of times. When you add in the Covid-19 related challenges all businesses are now facing, it can seem even more daunting. 

With this in mind, and as a consultant approved to work with clients of Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and Údarás na Gaeltachta, 3SIXTY has designed a simple 4-step process that makes understanding, accessing and utilising the available financial supports as simple and effective as possible. We work with businesses of all sizes and across a diverse range of sectors so get in touch if you want to discuss how your business can avail of and best use these financial supports.

To give a very real sense of the process we take our clients through, we have outlined 2 examples below of how we have recently helped clients:

• Understand what was available to them
• Access the most suitable support for their business and
• Make the most effective use of this funding to deliver real benefit to their businesses

Client A – Small business operating multiple outlets in the Food Services sector:

3SIXTY supported this client in accessing the Business Continuity Voucher from their Local Enterprise Office (LEO).

This grant, worth €2500, enabled the client to use 3SIXTY to develop a ‘new’ Strategic Plan for the business, focussed on how their outlets would operate once the Covi-19 restrictions are lifted.

This plan needed to consider -

• What impact will Physical Distancing have on capacity within the various outlets?
• What innovations/new ways of working are going to be required to incorporate Physical Distancing into the new Business-as-Usual (BAU)?
• What impact will this new BAU have on staffing requirements?
• What is the potential impact on turnover and how can any negative impact be minimised?
• What new costs are likely to be incurred by operating in this new way?
• What level of funding does the business require and what form should this funding take?
  
  

Based on the new Strategic Plan developed at Step 1 we then worked with our client and a partner Accountant to identify and access the best options for affordable and available funding. All traditional funding options were considered but, ultimately, we arrived at what we considered to be the 2 best options for this client’s particular situation.

• Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland (SBCI)
  
• Microfinance Ireland

We supported the client in completing all relevant paperwork required by SBCI and positioning the approach to their bank to secure the required funding of €75k.

Once the funding was secured, our client was able to start implementing the plans we had outlined in Step 1. 3SIXTY supported with the required Change Management, HR and Process Improvements. This work involved -

• Identifying new tools to support operations
• Designing new Standard Operating Procedures
• Creating new Staff/HR handbooks
• Building effective Internal Communications tools and materials
• Supporting the client to embed the changes so the benefits would be sustainable after 3SIXTY had left the field of play

Client B – Small business operating multiple outlets in the Food Services sector:

From working with this client and knowing the business, we identified 2 initial funding supports (both from Enterprise Ireland)

• SME Strategic Consultancy grant; this grant this covers up to 50% of the costs incurred in hiring a consultant to a maximum grant amount of €35,000
• Lean Business Continuity Voucher of €2,500

 These supports enabled our client to use 3SIXTY to develop a Strategic Plan for post Covid-19 which looked at -

• How their various markets have changed due to Covid-19 and the impact of these changes on the client’s business
• Identifying alternative revenue opportunities
• Gap analysis to understand what exactly the client needed to do to be in position to go after these alternative opportunities

We also worked with the client on a LEAN Strategy to help them understand the importance of doing the right things better, faster & cheaper in order to “get more” from their existing resources – i.e. essentially adding capacity to the business without adding additional cost. Embedding – in a highly practical way - a culture of Continuous Improvement was central to this.

Based on the new Strategic Plan developed at Step 1 we then worked with our client and a partner Accountant to identify and access the best options for affordable and available funding. All traditional funding options were considered but, ultimately, we arrived at what we considered to be the 2 best options for this client’s particular situation.  

We then worked with our client and their accountant to identify the best options for affordable and available capital. Based on the options we presented, the client decided the most advantageous route was via the Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland (SBCI). With this in mind, we explored the SBCI Future Growth Loan. This offers qualifying businesses loans of between €100k and €3m starting at an interest rate of 4.5%. These loans are channelled through the pillar banks once eligibility has been established via the SBCI.

We supported the client in completing all relevant paperwork required by SBCI and positioning the approach to their bank to secure the required funding.

Once the funding was secured, our client asked 3SIXTY to start implementing the plans we had outlined in Step 1. This work involved -

• Identifying and navigating current market challenges
• Identifying and navigating new revenue opportunities
• Understanding internal capability constraints & capacity requirements
• Developing a LEAN Strategy for the business
• Embedding a culture of Continuous Improvement
• Identifying new tools to support operations
• Designing new Standard Operating Procedures
• Creating new Staff/HR Handbooks
• Building effective Internal Communications tools and materials
• Supporting the client to embed the changes so the benefits would be sustainable after 3SIXTY had left the field of play