Executive Management as a Service
CFO as a Service / Part time Finance CFO
In 2019 the SFA carried out a survey which showed that 81% of respondents said that financial literacy was very or extremely important, while they thought that just 19% of Irish business owners have good finance knowledge. Availing of our CFO as a Service will ensure that you have the necessary finance support to scale your business.
Businesses with 10-50 employees in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown area are eligible for a grant of 85% of the cost of an initial three days with one of our Agile CFOs. As chosen finance support provider for DLR Local Enterprise Office’s ‘Finance Capability Programme’, our experienced Agile Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) can offer you valuable insight, advice, and support to achieve your goals. On average, our Agile CFOs have 25-30 years’ experience in senior finance and general management roles. Many have been involved in setting up, building and selling on businesses themselves. Our Agile CFOs know how to make a difference quickly. Book a call or contact us to find out more.
Please click here for a full copy of the report.
Sales Director as a Service
Many businesses struggle to manage a sales team effectively and sometimes hire someone to be both a sales director and a salesperson without success. Adding one of our experienced sales directors to your team on a part-time basis will ensure you get the most out of your sales team and maximise your business’s sales, talk to us to find out how Agile can provide your business with a ‘Sales Director as a Service’.
Head of Procurement / Supply Chain as a Service
Are you envious of large companies who have experts in procurement and are as a result able to undercut you on price?
Adding an Agile Procurement Executive to your team on a part-time basis or bringing in the expertise for a specific project allows you get access to the same skillset but at a fraction of the cost.
Are you an SME owner whose business has grown and increased in complexity, but your supply chain processes have fallen behind?
As an SME owner it is hard to find an expert who can help you with your supply chain. At Agile we have experts who have worked in global companies who are now using that expertise to help SMEs like yours.
Client success stories:
- We recently worked with a client helping them take 10% out of their cost of sales, that was a 3.4% improvement in their profit, what would that do for your business?
- Another client improved their gross margin by 5% following a review of their input costs.
- In 2020 we have had an 86% success rate in tenders that we have been involved in.
Interim Management
Have you someone on maternity leave or do you need experienced cover while you are recruiting to fill a role?
We have experienced resources who can fill the gap in your business. We have found that in most cases a part-time resource is sufficient to cover these interim positions.
We have resources that can fill the following positions:
- Finance Director
- Financial Controller
- Sales Director
- Procurement Director
- Managing Director
- Marketing Director
Tender Management
Have you spent years trying to win tenders but are falling short?
Completing tenders can be time consuming and require a particular skillset. Very few small companies have someone with the time and skillset to complete tenders to the standard required. Add one of our tender experts to your team and allow us work with you to ensure that your business puts its best foot forward when tendering for business.
It is estimated that there will be €90 BN of goods and services put out to public tender in Ireland and Northern Ireland over the next 5 years. If there are tenders in your area and you do not have the resources to manage a strong submission, talk to us and find out how we can help you.
Have you a large sales opportunity but don’t have an experienced sales resource to lead the bid?
We have people with 20 years plus experience leading sales teams who can become part of your team for the duration of the opportunity or ongoing as a Service.
Business Growth & Advisory Services
SME Funding and Advisory Support
As an SME getting funding for your business is challenging and frustrating. Key to getting the funding you need is to develop a robust plan, identifying the level of funding you require and then knowing the appropriate funding to match your requirements. At Agile we have a team of experienced advisors who can help you at each stage in the process and once the plan is developed, we can work with you to help you source the funds and deliver the plan.
We have helped our clients raise millions in funding through banks, Enterprise Ireland and other state agencies and alternative lenders.
Key Grant Support
There are many grants available through Enterprise Ireland, Local Enterprise Offices and other government agencies.
We have helped hundreds of clients obtain grant funding through Enterprise Ireland, InterTrade Ireland, BIM, Local Enterprise Offices and other state agencies.
Strategic Planning
Our Agile Scale-up approach allows enables us to help businesses and organisations develop and implement strategies for growth. We have worked on developing and implementing strategies for over 100 businesses, we have a proven methodology and experience that will ensure you will develop and deliver your strategy.
The Agile Executive SCALE-UP Strategic Planning Approach
Story – by listening to our clients, the business owners and understanding where the business has come from, we understand the purpose, mission, and vision of the business and what it is trying to achieve. We understand the challenges they are facing and what is holding them back
Clear goals – we work with the business owners to understand where they want to bring the business and what they want to achieve from the mentoring process
Assess goals – we establish where the business is and help them to develop plans to achieve their goals.
Learn how to implement plans to achieve the goals – we will at the end of the process leave the business owners with a better understanding of the processes and techniques to become an action-oriented business that achieve their objectives and deliver the strategy.
Evaluate performance – we will on an ongoing basis evaluate the performance and the progress of against the plans. We will work with you to assess what needs to change in your approach and adapt the plans to deliver the goals of the business.
Understand the key drivers – we will work with the business owners to better understand the key drivers in the business and understand how they can influence them to achieve better results and to deliver the desired growth.
Profit from the process – we will work with the business owners or senior managers to establish how they will profit from the delivery of the strategy.
SME Innovation & Productivity
A 2018 OECD survey showed that Irish SMEs are falling behind their European counterparts on innovation and productivity improvement.
We have a team of experts who have set up, grown, managed, bought and sold businesses. Whatever your goal is for your business we have someone on our team that can help you achieve it. Our experts have over 10 years each working in SMEs helping them be more innovative, grow and improve productivity.
Looking to drive Innovation and Productivity in your business we focus on a number of areas:
Processes:
As your business grows the processes need to adapt to support your business. We don’t focus on process for the sake of it but look at what needs to happen to support your business. Implementing better management processes, identifying key metrics for your business, and helping to embed these into your business will help your business continue to grow is a controlled manner.
People:
Does your business have the skills and expertise to allow you to continually grow? We can help you assess the skills in your business and develop plans to develop your team and to attract the right resources.
Technology:
Our experts can help you look at your technology and digital strategy. Can your internal systems support the growth of your business, do you need a new ERP system? We have people in our team with the experience to help you choose and implement the right system for your business.
Innovation:
Do you have a process within your business for innovation? We have experts who use design strategy to help businesses continually look at their business and to help develop new products or services. We can help you pivot your business so that you can adapt your product or service to the changing world around you.
What our clients are saying about us:
“I could not recommend or speak highly enough of my mentor, Pat. It was clear from the outset that he was a man with a wealth of knowledge and experience, who very quick understood the needs of my business, a small but busy legal practice. Pat helped me make some key decisions on the future of the business that I had been struggling with and introduced me to some very useful contacts. I would definitely commend Pat to any SME looking for support, and I will certainly seek out his guidance again in the future!”
“I found my mentor Jane to be incredibly helpful and had a real professional approach in all we discussed. She also had a new set of eyes on the business which I found helped out me greatly.”
“I was really well matched with Declan. I was so impressed with the research he did to understand my company strategy, he really listened to me and ‘got’ the whole ethos of my business, which is really important to me. I am so grateful for this program. My business has actually grown during these strange pandemic times. Declan really helped to show me that in fact going online has transformed my market and how I can now grow my Business with none of the physical boarders that were restricting me before. Thank you so much.”
“Working with The Agile Executive was a brilliant learning curve for me personally and I now have a much clearer pathway for my business. I was confused about the direction as I had two business ideas and after my sessions, I am now fully focused on one with laser-like determination.”
Key Project Support
If you have a key project coming up and need additional skilled resources, we can help.
System Implementation
Are you implementing a new ERP or Accounting system?
We have resources who have implemented a wide range of systems who can work alongside the vendors team to ensure you get the most out of your new system. Many system implementations fail due to lack of experience implementing systems and / or lack of dedicated resources to focus on the implementation.
Adding one of our experienced executives to your team can help solve these problems and ensure that your system implementation is successful and leads to business growth, improved profits and enhanced business value.
R & D Tax Credit Claims
Is your company claiming the R&D tax credit?
The R&D tax credit provides a substantial saving on R&D costs for Irish companies.
You could receive a refund from Revenue of 25% of the cost of qualifying R&D costs as an offset against your Corporation Tax or against your monthly PAYE/PRSI/USC.
The costs of developing new products for your customers can qualify for the tax credit so long as they meet certain criteria. IP ownership of the products developed are not qualifying criteria for the R&D tax credit.
We have people experienced in the R&D tax credit and can work with you to maximise the benefit for your company. Our team consists of financial and technical experts. We work with standard templates that meet Revenue guidelines.
- Free consultation to determine if your company meets the qualifying criteria
- Prepare the detailed tax credit claim
- Prepare the detailed supporting documentation (financial and technical)
- Revenue audit support
Consultancy Services
If you need someone to come in and help you with any aspect of your business, then we can help.
Unlike traditional consultancy practices all of our consultants have worked in businesses and have specific experience of working in SMEs so develop practical solutions that can be implemented in your business that will deliver improved performance. We can help you work in any of the following areas:
- Strategic Planning
- Sales Development Plans
- Business Planning
- Raising Capital
- Growing in international markets
Programmes
Programme Management
Our Team of experienced programme managers have managed a number of Complex mentoring Programmes for Skillnet, Small Firm Association (SFA), Solas and Enterprise Ireland.
Using our Agile Mentor Management System developed by Veri, we have managed and trained 150 mentors and have delivered mentoring to hundreds of clients matching the most appropriate mentor to clients. We have developed methodologies to recruit, manage, train and track the performance of mentors to ensure that we deliver outstanding results on the programmes we manage. A recent programme that we managed with over 120 clients scored in excess of 98% satisfaction rating from the participants.
Training
Our team have been delivering training to business owners through Local Enterprise Offices, Skillnet, Microfinance Ireland, SFA and many other organisations for over 20 years covering topics across finance, sales, marketing, digital marketing and strategy. This training is built from practical experience of what works in business as our team are all former Executives who call on their experience to develop our training programmes.
Mentoring
Our teams of experienced advisors have carried out mentoring across many different programmes mentoring over 500 different businesses, in all cases helping the business owners achieve more clarity in where they are going and helping them develop a plan that will help them achieve their goals. A good mentor will help you achieve your goals with more control and less stress.
Agile Mentor Management System
Agile Mentor Management System (Agile MMS) is powered by Veri, a Kilkenny based SME supported by Enterprise Ireland.
There is a common approach to how we do business and what we are trying to achieve. We are both Irish owned SMEs whose vision is to help other business owners achieve their goals.
Agile MMS serves a number of purposes:
- One place where all interactions can be stored.
- It is a system that can be easily adapted to cover every step, in any mentoring process, allowing us to effectively manage and report on progress.
- It prompts actions to be taken to ensures we meet our committed KPI’s.
- It is accessible for the Programme Managers, the Mentors, the Clients and the Contracting Authority.
- The rights to the site are scaled so we can grant access based on roles and responsibilities.
- Ensures GDPR permissions are agreed and stored as appropriate.
- It measures performance and helps us easily report against agreed SLA’s.
- Data-led, it helps us make more informed and quicker decisions.
What our clients are saying about us:
“My mentor Claire was fantastic, very knowledgeable and gave me practical help on a variety of issues from pricing, agreements and how to get clients and increase my profile and company profile. She was a pleasure to deal with and I really enjoyed the experience.”
“Paul was a wonderful help and I would be delighted to work with him again. Highly recommend!”
“I found The Agile Executive to be very professional and excellent at supporting me and helping me to grow my business. Mary was fantastic and I would highly recommend them and would love to work with them again.”
“Pat was an excellent advisor and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. The sharing of experience and using Pat to trash out idea really focused me on my role as a senior manager!”