Tradelinks Cross Border Programme

By project EIS

Published on 05 July 2018

Ireland

About this good practice

Following a Scoping Study in 2002 a strategic approach to supporting cross-border trade and business development for the micro business sector was developed. The net result was the design of the TRADELINKS programme. The programme assisted businesses in the micro-enterprises across Northern Ireland and the Border counties of Ireland to start cross-border trade and exporting. The programme was initially funded from a number of sources - primarily through the INTERREG programme as well as Invest Northern Ireland, the Department of Enterprise Business and Innovation and the International Fund for Ireland.
This programme assisted micro-businesses by providing a wide-ranging suite of programmes specifically designed to address the issues unique to the microenterprise sector. It provided businesses with the opportunity to avail of onsite expert mentoring on a broad range of topics and the formation of cross-border linkages with similar micro-enterprises. It is focused on developing the capacity of the businesses and owner/manager to consider trading on a cross-border basis.
The programme was managed by a management committee made up of representatives of the 6 border Local Enterprise Offices in ROI and 6 Local Enterprise Agencies in NI, supported by an advisory committee which consisted of the main stakeholders at national and regional level.
At all times the programme was a 4 stage programme – Entrée, Gearing Up, Trading and Innovation and supported via one-to-one mentoring.

Expert opinion

This is an interesting good practice from Ireland that specifically focused on the internationalization challenges of micro-enterprises. The program was developed based on an in-depth analysis of the needs of micro-enterprises in the region and as a result, various services were developed and offered to support micro-enterprises in cross-border trade and exporting. The program can be seen to have had a considerable impact on the local economy with more than 760 new jobs created in addition to increased home and export sales. The idea of offering tailored support to micro-enterprises instead of considering their needs to be the same as in case of SMEs is worth exploring elsewhere as well. As such, the program could inspire policy-makers in other regions.

Rene Tonnisson

Works at Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform

Resources needed

Budget over the 12 years was €8.765M, from:
- INTERREG IVA programme
- Invest Northern Ireland,
- Department of Enterprise Business and Innovation
- International Fund for Ireland.
Staffing: 2 full-time, 6 part-time sub-regional co-ordinators, some 38 staff within Enterprise Agencies

Evidence of success

The overall outputs/outcomes from the programme:
• 682 businesses on the programme.
• + 767 new jobs ( surveyed 12 and 24 months after the programme).
• + €22M in home sales achieved
• + €10.5M in export sales achieved
• 76% of participants reported increase in business management confidence.
• 63% had increased their networking capability.

Potential for learning or transfer

We believe that this practice has significant learning for other regions and practitioners for the following reasons:
 The programme was based on actual needs assessment across the regions.
 Had buy-in form local delivery agents.
 It had a unique delivery structure on a cross border basis with unique a management approach.
 There was high levels of trust built up which enabled the delivery of an integrated programme.
 The programme was an additional support to standard offerings which made it attractive for both the businesses and the agencies.
 Strong focus was on business development as part of the process to facilitate businesses engage in exporting.
 Strong focus on networking as part of the support ecosystem.
 While there were different local delivery methods used over the period all were locally based.