November's MOCC Meeting will take place on Wednesday 2nd November at 11am in the HARLEQUIN HOTEL, CASTLEBAR and this month we will be focusing on the Public Procurement Process. Annually the market for public procurement in the EU amounts to approx €1800 billion. The opportunities in Ireland and the UK alone are worth approximately €190 billion a year. This represents a huge market potential. The public sector's buying needs are wide ranging offering opportunities to all business sectors. Public contracts offer guaranteed payment. Public sector clients demand high standards giving companies a future competitive edge.

On Wednesday 2nd November, Helena will look at the procurement market and basic rules - Sources of information, key contacts and current developments, the bid/no bid decision, designing, writing and producing a bid response document and how bids are marked, debriefing and remedies.

Helena Deane from Business Connection Ireland (www.bcireland.com)is a graduate from the Fachhochschule für Wirtschaft (Business School of Economics) Berlin, and Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. She gained a First Class (Hons) BA Degree in European Business, with special focus on Strategic Management and Central and Eastern European (CEE) Economies, tackling subjects such as the transitional nature of these economies, studying the macroeconomic and microeconomic factors in the SME sector, as well as researching impacts of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Helena has over 20 years of extensive and varied experience of doing business in international markets, including USA, Germany, Romania, Czech Republic, Bosnia & Herzegovina, UK and Croatia. Over the years, Helena has acquired solid appreciation for different industrial backgrounds including Manufacturing, Trading, Consultancy, Retail, and Wholesale and has thorough knowledge and experience of multiple disciplines, including project management, customer account management, and tendering and biding.

MOCC is a business network run by businesspeople for businesspeople. The event is free of charge. All meetings start at 11am and last between one hour and 90 minutes.

All you have to do is turn up on the day. More details on the Mayo Open Coffee Club are available on http://mayo-open-coffee-club.org/, or you can email any of the organisers: Judith Feehan (iibccastlebar@gmit.ie), Robert Grealis (Robert@thediscoverypartnership.com) Maria Staunton (Maria.Staunton@gmit.ie), or Liam Horan (liam.horan@slinuacareers.com)

Start-up businesses, people with the germ of an idea, and established businesses all find the Open Coffee Club a useful vehicle to get in touch with what's happening in the business world around Mayo.

The IiBC's in GMIT Castlebar & Galway have created the following:
160+ jobs created
€26,000,000 funding raised by client companies
14 HPSU (high potential start-up) companies created
17 successful spin outs
80 companies in 6 years