Opportunity for Businesses to Make BIG Contacts at All Island Networking Event

A special all-island networking event is offering renewable and sustainable businesses from across the island the opportunity to ‘Build Ireland Greener’ and make valuable contacts, all in one day and under one roof. The event takes place on 20th November 2008 in City North Hotel, Co Meath.



The BIG event will bring together up to 60 businesses from across the island of Ireland and 12 buyers from large private and public sector organisations to have pre-arranged one-to-one meetings with each other, share information and explore possible collaboration.



Organised by MicroTrade, a partnership initiative between InterTradeIreland, Enterprise Northern Ireland and the County & City Enterprise Boards.  The programme aims to help small businesses with 1 to 10 employees, to develop business contacts across the island of Ireland.



As Breanndan Casey, MicroTrade Programme Manager, points out “The global economic and environmental changes taking place at the moment are driving the emergence and demand for new products and services in the sustainable and renewable sectors.  This has the potential to create vast commercial opportunities for such businesses across the island. The Build Ireland Greener event aims to help small businesses take advantage of this opportunity by bringing them together to learn more about emerging trends and opportunities, discuss possible collaboration and share information and experience.”



In addition to the one-to-one meetings with buyers and other small businesses attendees will also hear from experts from the renewable and sustainable fields and participate in seminars that will look at the opportunities available in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.



Last Year’s BIG Success



MicroTrade decided to hold the BIG event again this year following the success of last year’s event. Over fifty small businesses and 12 large buyer companies attended last year. Over 370 one-to-one meetings took place between small busineses, and small businesses and buyers, and 97% or attendees rated their experience as excellent or very good.



SSC Systems from Portadown was one of the attending companies and has signed up for this year’s already due to his experience at last year’s Build Ireland Greener event.



Formed in 2004, SSC Systems produces stainless steel hot water pressurised cylinders for the rapidly expanding renewable energy market within the island of Ireland. They attended the BIG event as they felt that the renewable energy sector is more advanced in the Republic of Ireland.



Paul Scullion, Marketing Director at SSC noted “We have a number of customers in the south but we viewed the BIG Event, organised by MicroTrade, as an excellent opportunity to meet with potential new customers and partners. As a result of our attendance, we had a number of sales with attending companies, and since then, have managed to increase our southern customer base by 37%. The pre-arranged meetings enabled us to meet numerous companies within the expanding energy sector, where word of mouth is still a critical factor”.



The stainless steel cylinder market is currently dominated by several UK and European manufactures who supply their standard range of products to the local market. SSC Systems’ flexible manufacturing system means that they can deliver small quantities with reduced lead-times. They also offer a bespoke customised cylinder to suit individual customers with a range of different sizes which they can own brand as their cylinders.



Demand for the 2008 Build Ireland Event is expected to be high.  To avoid disappointment book your place today by contacting 0044 (0) 28 7962 8113 or register on-line at www.thebigevent.ie



The event is one of a range of supports offered by MicroTrade. Businesses that wish to undertake joint projects can apply for Link-Up funding to finance their joint ventures.  Companies can also sign up for workshops to assist micro-enterprises in overcoming the specific obstacles experienced by smaller companies in targeting the public sector. Further information on MicroTrade can be found on www.microtrade.org, by emailing info@microtrade.org or by contacting Breanndan Casey on +353 (0) 1 4948414.