Managers of the south-east's major industries are sharing their expertise with small and medium-sized enterprises in a business development project launched last week.
Plato South East will see executives of companies such as Glanbia, Showerings and Bausch and Lomb sit down regularly with their counterparts in the small business sector to review management issues.
The project is a joint initiative of the enterprise boards in Carlow, Waterford city, Kilkenny, south Tipperary and Wexford, as well as the chambers of commerce and IBEC in the south-east.
It brings small and large enterprises together in a formal way which has not been attempted in the region before. "We had a case in Carlow, for example, where people from two companies, one large and one small, knew each other to see but had never actually spoken. Now they're working together in the same programme," said Ms Jacqueline Sweeney, Plato's regional manager.
Unlike mentoring programmes, which usually involve contact on a one-to-one basis, Plato brings groups of 10 to 12 participating companies to monthly meetings led by two executives from the major firms. Plato originated in Belgium in the Turnhout region which, consequently, has experienced significant small business development in recent years. The project is now running in several parts of Ireland.
Ms Sweeney, who went "on tour" last August, first to see how other Plato programmes were operating and then to recruit participants in the southeast, said "practically every large company" approached agreed to get involved. There are 11 such "parent companies" and 66 small- and medium-sized enterprises, employing between three and 50 people. Nearly all those involved turned out last week for the project's launch by the chief executive of Waterford Crystal, Mr Redmond O'Donoghue, at Mount Juliet golf club in Thomastown.
Ms Siobhan O'Dwyer of Kilkenny marketing consultants ODM, a participating company which has three employees, was enthusiastic about the prospects for the project.
As well as the assistance from larger companies, it was encouraging to meet people from companies of similar scale to ODM, in which she is a partner. "With this whole Celtic tiger thing you hear about people earning so much money and you're thinking `Am I mad? Should I be doing this?' To meet other people in small businesses reminds you why you do it."
And why is she doing it? "You're master of your own destiny. You can steer your business towards the things you like to do - not what somebody else dictates."