There is nobody that could have missed the news last week that Dell will be moving their production from the Limerick plant to Lodz, Poland leading to 1900 employees becoming redundant over the next 12 months.
While I will not enter into discussion here on the “who, what, where & how” I do think this does not neccesarilly has to be all bad. In pure practical terms this leads to 1900 people with up to 1 years salary paid into their bank account. Quite a few of these people will have skills that are still marketable and that could be turned into a profitable business. Their redundancy payment will nulify one of the biggest worry of every starting entrepreneur; how to pay your bills. All they need is the right support and mentoring.
While state development agencies such as the County Enterprise Boards, Enterprise Ireland the IDA etc. have a role to play here I am convinced that the Open Coffee Club can play a valuable part in this process. The Open Coffee Club attendees have a wealth of experience and information that should be shared with people wanting to venture out on their own. I would like to invite any of the Dell employees that will be made redundant to attend our OCC meetings.
To make a start I am following Sensorpro’s Chris Byrne example by offering free start-up advice to any of the Dell employees who believe that this is NOT the end and who would like to find out more about starting their own business. Assisting these people (and others) to create their own employment and also create jobs for others will hopefully create a solid base of Irish owned businesses. These businesses in general will not move to lower wage countries at the first rise in national wage standards. It will also lead to a more solid and dependable base of employment. After all the IDA spent millions (if not more) over the last few decades on attracting foreign owned companies to Ireland. These companies will move to lower cost countries as soon as it make sense to their bottom line. Directing some funds towards creating a healthy start-up environment will have a long term positive effect on this countries economy.
Support could take lots of different forms; advice and mentoring is one, but another option is the creation of high benefit, low bureaucracy start-up centres. Take some of the plenty-full vacant offices and create an environment where a start-up or entrepreneur can concentrate on what they need to do: getting their business of the ground.
I am looking for members of Irelands business & start-up community who would be willing to contribute in this effort to get these 1900+ people back into employment.
