Graduating to growth

INTERTRADEIRELAND:THE NEED FOR greater levels of innovation in Irish industry has long been recognised. The question is how to achieve it. One proven method is to facilitate graduate recruitment by innovative companies. Indeed, recent research undertaken by the Association of Graduate Recruiters states that graduates contribute £1 billion (€1.15 billion) of added value to the UK economy every year.

Recognising the substantial business and economic contribution graduates can make, InterTradeIreland has funded and supported 300 graduate projects to help small to medium enterprises (SMEs) grow through all-island trade and innovation. It is believed these graduates can play a key role in rebuilding and revitalising the economy and that their skills can make a substantial difference to business performance.

InterTradeIreland has two programmes which place graduates in SMEs, Fusion and Acumen. The Fusion programme develops and facilitates three-way cross-border, innovation partnerships and projects between companies, graduates and third-level institutions.

Typical projects involve the development of new and innovative products and services, improvements to existing products and streamlining production processes.

Acumen is a cross-border sales and marketing programme that helps companies identify new markets across the island and increase their sales.

Both programmes support graduates to undertake a 12-month project within an SME. As part of their project graduates are funded to complete a postgraduate diploma with the UCD Michael Smurfit Business School.

Denis Carpenter has been named Acumen graduate of the year for his work with Carlow-based animal nutrition company Adesco. He undertook a cross-border project with Adesco to increase sales performance which resulted in more than €250,000 in new export orders to Northern Ireland and has since been recruited by the company.

“We provide innovative feed and nutritional ingredients to the animal feeds sector,” Carpenter explains. “We are also involved in assisting clients enhance the efficiency of their feed manufacturing processes. I started here at the beginning of 2010 and my main role was to provide technical knowledge to support and grow sales of our nutritional products and services.”

Every Adesco product has a nutritional value and the company therefore needs a nutritionist to qualify products and demonstrate the return on investment a company can get by using them. Carpenter is a qualified animal nutritionist with nine years in the industry already behind him. He also had considerable experience in sales. This meant that Adesco got both a nutritionist and a sales manager when they recruited him.

“Working with an innovative company like Adesco to help develop their business has been an invaluable experience,” Carpenter adds. “I was also supported to complete a fully funded postgraduate diploma in sales management with the UCD Michael Smurfit Business School and continue my professional development.”

Mark Costello is design manager with medical device company Synecco, based in Furbo, Co Galway, having initially started working with them through the Fusion programme in 2009.

Synecco is a specialist supply chain company focused on the design and manufacture of medical devices for some of the world’s leading medical device companies. Synecco works with client organisations to provide integrated solutions from product design through to manufacturing and fulfilment.

“The company had identified a new market opportunity and went to InterTradeIreland to see if the Fusion programme could be used as a vehicle to make it happen,” Costello explains.

The project was to develop a new product to help reduce the incidence of certain hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA with improved utility, ease of use, effectiveness and cost benefits for their clients.

“The Fusion programme worked very well because it has a multi-disciplinary aspect to it,” he adds. “The project involved the design and manufacture of a plastic product to deliver an anti-microbial formulation to an area of a patient’s skin prior to surgery. We were able to work with Queen’s University Belfast on the development of the anti-microbial formulation.”

A graduate in industrial design from the University of Limerick and the National College of Art Design, Costello worked on the design of the product itself. “The product is designed to deliver a precise amount of the anti-microbial formulation to the precise area where it is needed and minimise the incidence of post-operative infection,” he points out. “The development of it involved a lot of discussions with potential users and taking into account their needs in designing a product which was ergonomically efficient.”

In addition to playing his role in the development of the new product, Costello received the InterTradeIreland Mary Breslin Award, after receiving the highest marks in his postgraduate diploma in management from the UCD Michael Smurfit Business School having completed it as part of the Fusion programme.

“Graduates are bright, well-educated, enthusiastic, eager to succeed and they are the type of people we need working across the island, now more so than ever,” says Liam Nellis, InterTradeIreland chief executive. “They can apply the latest thinking from academia and their skills can significantly benefit our ambitious SMEs, especially during these tough economic times.

“More than 70 per cent of the graduates who completed their projects this year have been offered employment by the participating businesses,” he adds. “This is a sign of the quality of the graduates recruited and the success of the innovation and cross-border trade projects undertaken. A total of 194 graduates have secured permanent management jobs with SMEs supported by InterTradeIreland through our Fusion and Acumen programmes.”