The Bottom Line on KCLR KCLR

This week on The Bottom Line on KCLR, to discuss some of business news from the week Colin Ahern was joined by Morwenna Coniam, Dublin Bureau Chief at Bloomberg News.
Trade Local.ie is a newly launched business and classified website which is aimed at encouraging people to support local and shop local. Ray O’Shaughnessy of Trade local.ie chatted to Colin, about starting up the website, how it works and plans for the future.
Brian Kelly, Chief Executive of Kilkenny based company MindAClient, joined Colin to tell us more about the organisation, how it has evolved since it first began 21 years ago and the launch of their latest product “Wellbeing in the Workplace”.
John Hurley, CEO of Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce and Rowena Dooley, Vice President of County Carlow Chamber of Commerce spoke with Colin about the recent St. Patricks Day parade festivities across Carlow & Kilkenny and the importance of such events to our local economies. 
 
With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

This week on The Bottom Line on KCLR Colin Ahern, spoke with Martin O’Brien, Head of Irish Economic Analysis at Central Bank of Ireland about their recently published first quarterly bulletin of 2023. 
Ashling Ward, Network Manager at Carlow Kilkenny Skillnet joined Colin to chat about a new course available to businesses - “Certificate in Strategic and Operational Management" which was launched last week by Carlow Kilkenny Skillnet, Waterford Chamber Skillnet, and Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Mobility & Supply Chain Skillnet in collaboration with South East Technological University (SETU). 
Paul Whitnell, President & Founder of British & Irish Trading Alliance(BITA) spoke with Colin about the work that BITA do, how the organisation began, how this has developed throughout the years and the value of networking events.
Local Enterprise Week was a busy week across Carlow & Kilkenny with numerous events happening both locally as well as online, Kieran Comerford, Head of Economic Development & Enterprise at Carlow Local Enterprise Office & Aileen McGrath, Acting Head of Enterprise, at Kilkenny Local Enterprise Office joined Colin to chat about some of the highlights from the week as well as speaking about the outlook for SME’s and future entrepreneurs.

With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

This week on The Bottom Line on KCLR, Colin Ahern was filling in for John Purcell and was joined by Marion Acreman, Centre Manager at MacDonagh Junction Shopping Centre to chat through some of the business stories from the week.
Local Enterprise week was running throughout the country since Monday, and while there were many events taking place locally some of the highlights from the week were the Student Enterprise Awards in Carlow & Kilkenny as well as the Carlow County Final of the National Enterprise Awards. 
Edwina Grace went along to the Student Enterprise Awards in both Carlow & Kilkenny and caught up with the senior county winners - Monarch Gymwear, Tullow Community School, and The Gaming Guard, Grennan College, Thomastown. While on Thursday, Software & Technology Company Forest Rock Technologies was named Carlow Enterprise of the Year at the Carlow County final of the National Enterprise awards and Philip Clarke, Managing Director joined Colin to tell us more about their business and what the win meant to them.
Denyse Campbell, President of the Irish Hotels Federation joined Colin to chat about sustainability in the Hotel & Tourism Industry and why there is a lot more to sustainability than just being “green”.
Ciara Gleeson, Marketing Manager at EZ Living Furniture chatted to Colin about their recent success at the Digital Business Ireland National Digital Awards, with EZ Living Furniture being crowned winner of National Website of the Year as well as picking up the award for Medium Website of the year for the second year in a row. 
With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

Filling in for John Purcell on The Bottom Line this week was Deirdre Dromey, and to chat through some of the business news from the week she was joined by Brian O’Farrell, CEO of County Carlow Chamber of Commerce. Brian also chatted through their “Member’s Green Initiative” and their upcoming events.
"Twenty Questions" our feature which gives you the chance to get the know the individuals behind the businesses and organisations within our communities across Carlow & Kilkenny was back this week, and our latest guest was Róisín McQuillan, Administrator & Business Development Officer at Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce.
On Thursday, Minister Neale Richmond, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment met a range of local businesspeople in Kilkenny and our Edwina Grace spoke with the Minister to hear more about the visit.
Announced during the Ministers visit to Kilkenny was Taxback International’s strategic partnership with WTS Global and Edwina spoke to Terry Clune, CEO of CluneTech and founder of Taxback International, Joe Healy, Chief Commercial Officer with Taxback International and Jurgen Scholz, of WTS. 
Melissa Doyle, Business Advisor at Local Enterprise Office Carlow & Co-ordinator of Powerhouse – Women in Business Network, and Norah Ryan, Owner & Managing Director of Barrow Consultancy & Training spoke with Deirdre about the Powerhouse Women in Business Network and the upcoming Powerhouse – Digital Marketing Event to mark Women’s International Day. Norah who will be one of the speakers at upcoming Powerhouse event spoke about her organisation and the work they do as well as speaking about the importance of having a network for people in business.
With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

In this weeks’ episode of The Bottom Line on KCLR, Colin Ahern, General Manager of the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel and former President of Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce joined John to discuss some of the business news from the week.
Brian O ‘Flynn, Head of Ireland’s Ancient East at Fáilte Ireland, chats to John about the Tourism & Hospitality Sector, how the industry is positioned for 2023 and plans for year ahead.
Business mentor, Blaise Brosnan, spoke with John about running a business during inflationary times and how business owners can plan & adopt different business strategies to meet the challenges of running a business during an inflationary cycle.
Megan Manning, Owner of Happy Beads and President of Network Ireland Carlow spoke with John about setting up the Network Ireland branch in Carlow, what the network can offer to its members and highlights the importance of networking groups. 
With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices, Produced by Deirdre Dromey
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

Over the last week the EU Commission issued its latest economic analysis and forecast, Eamon Quinn, Business Editor at The Irish Examiner spoke with John about the forecasts for the Irish economy. 
With the threat of cyber-attacks being ever present for businesses, Gavin Dixon, Chief Executive of Business I.T. Solutions chatted to John about minimising risk, the importance of having a plan in place in case of an attack and cyber security insurance.
Oonagh McCutcheon, National Director .IE Digital Town Programme & Vernon Buckley, of Piltown’s Broadband 4 our Community spoke with John about the .IE Digital Town Awards. They discuss what the win meant to last year’s winners in Piltown, Co. Kilkenny and how they have fared since scooping the top prize as well as how to enter the .IE Digital Town Awards 2023
John Doyle, Director of Hi Tec Medicare Ltd., chatted to John about how two old orthopaedic chairs and a gut feeling led to the start of a family business that went on to be named overall Business of the Year at the Kilkenny Business Awards.
With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices, Produced by Deirdre Dromey
To contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com