Kildare and Meath bodies link up to help businesses tackle Covid challenges

The Covid-19 crisis has prompted County Kildare Chamber, Meath Enterprise and Maynooth University to join forces to aid business to tackle challenges posed by the digital era.

Research gathered by the Kildare and Meath business bodies show executives are fear employee pushback, lack of expertise, lack of an overall strategy and limited cash will stall efforts to bring digital technology to their businesses.

In response, Maynooth University's Innovation Value Institute has designed its Rethink-Redesign programme to support companies forced by new technology, and more recently the Covid-19 crisis, to change how they do business.

The pandemic has redesigned firms’ needs to use technology to stay trading. County Kildare Chamber says that the programme’s workshops will focus on new technology.

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So far, 23 organisations from counties Kildare and Meath have signed up to the programme, which Maynooth says will provide participants with customised aid to change their businesses.

Productivity gains

Allan Shine, County Kildare Chamber chief executive, pointed out that companies using new technology earned higher profits and were more productive than those that did not. "Businesses engaging in new markets over the past 24 months in the region have increased their turnover by an average of 18 per cent," he said.

Mr Shine warned that if a business remained static, it might not survive.

Prof Markus Helfert, director of Maynooth's Innovation Value Institute, said the university had already tested the programme with several small and medium-sized businesses.

Gary O’Meara, Meath Enterprise chief executive, argued that the Covid-19 crisis had highlighted the importance of innovation.

He declared that the digital economy was real and here to stay. “The resulting pace of change is staggering and lines defining sectors and industries are blurring,” Mr O’Meara said.

He noted that the World Economic Forum has predicted that 40 per cent of companies will disappear over the next 10 years if they fail to keep up with these changes.

At the same time, 60 per cent of the jobs that people will hold in 2030 do not yet exist while one out of two current posts will have disappeared.