Dear Member, 

Welcome to this edition of the SFA e-zine.

We are pleased to announce Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton TD will give the keynote address at our Smart Business Conference, taking place on Thursday, 2 May at the Aviva Stadium Dublin. We still have a few spaces left so book your place now.

Our Brexit update focuses on the newly launched €300 million Future Growth Loan Scheme for SMEs and farmers.

Good news for the construction, transport and sporting sectors a number of changes have been made to the employment permits system for non-EEA employees to address labour shortages in these industries.

Recruitment is the number one issue impacting businesses of all sizes right now but how can a small business secure the right people in this current climate? Our Grow, Scale, Succeed platform has a number of resources to help your business find the right people. 

When consulting with our members for the recent SFA Skillnet funding application, many had questions about how to correctly identify the training needs for themselves and their staff. As a result, we have put together some steps on how to assess training needs in your organisation.

A new report on Micro-Businesses in Ireland looks at the ambitions, growth aspirations, innovation levels and digital technology adoption of Irish micro-businesses.

The final event in our Digital Marketing Masterclass takes place on 9 May focusing on improving your digital marketing strategy’s Conversion Rate Optimisation across all platforms. Bookings are now open for the next Business Bytes session on 15 May. We also provide a summary of recent press coverage.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about any queries you may have, issues you wish to have raised with Government or other stakeholders and your ideas on how we can improve the business environment for us all. Please contact me on tel: 01 605 1602 or e-mail: sven@sfa.ie or tweet: @SFA_Irl or visit: www.sfa.ie.

Kind regards, 

Sven Spollen-Behrens

SFA Director