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InterTradeIreland’s Acumen programme will help you recruit a sales person to target Northern Ireland and pay half their salary up to €18,750, explains Alison Currie.
Despite all the uncertainty around Brexit, Northern Ireland is still worth considering as a key market to grow your business – to discover new sales, new customers and new sustainable income.
Businesses can’t afford to stand still. As Ireland’s nearest neighbour, Northern Ireland is a natural option and the market is expanding. Cross-border trade is growing, and is worth an estimated €7bn annually.
In fact, there’s been on average a 4% year-on-year growth on cross-border trade in goods over the past two decades. It may be coincidence but InterTradeIreland has been in existence for 20 years. The cross border market is our area of expertise and we know it very well.
In Association with
We can support you to get started in your cross-border journey. Among the programmes on offer is Acumen. It will help you recruit a sales person to target Northern Ireland and pay half their salary up to €18,750.
If you are not in the position to bring on a full-time member of staff, we can support you to employ somebody part-time, which you can then leverage to grow your customers in Northern Ireland. It is an ideal way to enter into the market for the first time
Export Benefits
All the research shows that Irish firms that export even just across the border benefit significantly from higher productivity levels, employment and turnover. Plus they tend to be more resilient.
They are not afraid to diversify and try out new products and services. If you are working in two markets, you have a much bigger view of what works and what doesn’t. It benefits the scope of your business.
Northern Ireland is a proven ground for ambitious companies to realise their potential. Successful Irish firms often use the experience gained in the cross-border market to realise their broader exporting ambitions.
Testing The Market
One such company is Revive Active in Galway. Entrepreneur Daithí O’Connor started the company in 2011. Eight years later 20,000 people a day use his super Vitamin A supplement. The business has grown steadily year on year with over 1,000 retailers on the island of Ireland now stocking the product.
Daithí says: “Our plan was to crack Northern Ireland first. It has been a great test-bed for us in terms of exporting, and our next target market is the USA. Initially we are going to target Florida. That state alone has population of 20 million people, and the total US market has a value of $28bn.”
If you have an innovative SME with a product that stands out, it will probably sell well in Northern Ireland. However, unless you have looked at Northern Ireland, how are you going to know about the opportunities that exist there?
• Alison Currie (pictured) leads the InterTradeIreland trade team and is responsible for the management and delivery of the cross-border trade programmes Acumen and Elevate.
