INCLUSIVITY was one of the main themes of the May National Enterprise Week, with every Bank of Ireland branch in the State participating and events being organised with a view to maximising participation. “We wanted to reach out to as many businesspeople as possible, so we organised the events programme to be as inclusive as possible,” says Michael Lauhoff.

“We had a series of major flagship events in key regional locations throughout the country to get the message out on a nationwide basis. The variety of speakers was tremendous. We had TV dragon Bobby Kerr speaking at an event in Dundalk, and his fellow dragon, Sean Gallagher, gave the keynote address in the event in Thomond Park in Limerick. We had Jim O’Hara of Intel Ireland speaking at an event in Carton House in Kildare. Media entrepreneur Margaret Ward shared a platform with Facebook’s Rick Kelley in the House of Lords in Dublin,” he recalls. “And we had a great line-up of speakers at the other venues around the country as well.”

But the week was more than just about flagship events. On the contrary, the approach was very much from the bottom up. “Every region hosted a series of business breakfasts, seminars, workshops and other events which were open to local businesspeople to participate in and attend,” Lauhoff notes.

“Thousands of people attended these events, which ranged from tax advisory workshops to green business seminars. The feedback from the events was fantastic.”

For many businesses, the Show Your Business part of National Enterprise Week was the highlight. It afforded businesses the opportunity to get straight to the heart of their communities, by promoting their products and services in their local Bank of Ireland branch. Well over 1,400 individual businesses availed of this opportunity in May with many of them generating new sales as a result.

One of the most positive outcomes from the week, says Lauhoff, was the new connections established between participating businesses.

“Businesses were talking to each other at the events and the Show

Your Business days,” he recalls. “They were looking at ways to help each other. For example, in one branch three complementary businesses that were unaware of each other’s existence are now trading with each other as a result of the Show Your Business platform. One customer leaving one of the regional seminars said to me, ‘I did

business tonight so

I’m happy’. That’s what we’re hoping to see again this month.”