Acumen: How to Apply

The Acumen team will work closely with you to help you decide which option is most suitable for your business needs.

1. Initial Eligibility Check

Contact one of our team on 028 308 34188 (048 from Ireland) or email acumen@intertradeireland.com to ensure that your business satisfies the basic eligibility criteria.

2. Export Diagnostic Assessment

All businesses that satisfy the basic eligibility criteria will be required to undertake an export diagnostic assessment to review the following:

• Export potential of the goods/services provided by the business.
• Potential customers/ opportunities in the cross-border market.
  
• Nature and scale of the cross-border market opportunity.
  
• Potential competitors in the cross-border market.
  
• Capacity of the business (financial, human and production) to engage in cross-border trade.
  

The output of the Export Diagnostic assessment is a comprehensive and bespoke report for your business and a recommendation on whether your business should proceed to the application stage.

3. Application and Assessment

A member of the Acumen team will work closely with you to help complete the application, which will be assessed by a committee at a monthly meeting. Please note a full set of financial accounts must be provided to support your application. If your application is approved, you will be notified immediately.

4. Getting started

Shortly after approval, you will be issued with a Letter of Offer. You will also be required to recruit the new sales resource within three months. Additional support towards recruitment is available (refer to Additional Funding section). When you have appointed a suitable sales resource, your Acumen funding will formally commence and you will be supported throughout the process by an InterTradeIreland Acumen consultant.

5. Claiming Your Funding

When you confirm the appointment of the new sales resource, you will be provided with claim forms and progress report templates. Claims should be submitted on a quarterly basis in arears with the appropriate supporting documentation provided e.g. copies of payslips, invoices, bank statements etc. You will also be required to submit a quarterly progress report with your claim.

6. Completing the Acumen Process

The duration of Acumen funding and support is up to 12 months. Upon submission of the final claim you will be required to submit a conclusion report which will measure the overall impact Acumen has had in helping your business to increase sales in the cross-border market. As a condition of the Letter of Offer, InterTradeIreland will continue to monitor this progress for up to three years after completion of the support.