The EIP is a programme designed to take current and future entrepreneurs and to immerse them for a week with other entrepreneurs in the area to allow them to concentrate on their business strategy.

The only qualifying criteria are that the participant is:

• An ambitious and driven individual
• Part of a business based in the Highlands and Islands
• Responsible for the strategic growth of the business
• Ambitious to achieve sales outside the Highlands and Islands area in the near future

Course details

Date: TBC - 2010
Location: TBC
Cost: TBC

What format does the course take?
The course will be an intensive immersion programme run over five days where the participants will be removed from the day to day strains of running their business and encouraged to take an objective strategic look at the business in order to assess its direction.  

Each day will include a teaching session focusing on:

• Entrepreneurship
• Marketing and Intellectual Property (IP)
• Sales and Marketing
• Raising Finance for Investment
• Leadership and Human Resources

Each weekday evening, there will be a relevant business support organisation sponsoring the dinner session where a representative from the organisation will host the session and bring along a demonstrative case study in order to have a facilitated discussion around a specific subject.

An example of what the outline of the course is expected to be:

Day	Course	Short Presentation	Dinner
Sunday evening			Welcome reception with EIP business network and alumni participants
Monday	Business Strategy Overview - Bill Bryan	Successful Highlands & Islands businesses	Sponsored by Enterprise Europe Network
Tuesday	IP and Intellectual Assets - Donal O'Herlihy Planning and Raising Finance - Angus Hay	Highland Venture Capitalists	Sponsored by the Intellectual Asset Centre
Wednesday	Sales and Marketing - Alistair Minty	Highlands & Islands based international entrepreneurs	Sponsored by the British-China Association
Thursday	Management Skills - Peter Rogan	Past participants of the EIP course	Sponsored by the SNABC
Friday	TBC	TBC	TBC

 What are the benefits to participating businesses?

• Teach, remind and refresh business skills in entrepreneurship, recognising and protecting business IP, sales and marketing, finance and investment and leadership, management and human resource management.
• Inspire entrepreneurs to be ambitious and aim for either regional, national or international growth.
• Connect entrepreneurs to networks of useful business support services and other local, national and international networks which can help them achieve their potential.
• Support peer to peer support by building a cohesive network of Alumni in the Highlands and Islands who have the experience to guide and support other businesses.
• Ignite entrepreneurial activity and a culture of “can do” attitude in the Highlands & Islands business community. The education of people with vision and an ability to take risks is vital to the future economic health of the region as well as to each individual businesses’ success.
• Act as a pipeline funnel for the programme of work HIE is currently doing with the MIT Sloan School of Management and FUSION to build a thriving, sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Highlands & Islands.
• Gain practical advice on - recruiting the best people, building the right team, quantifying the value proposition of the business, selling outside Scotland, going global and achieving sustainable growth.

Outcomes from the 2008 course include:

• Participants reported business growth on average of 22%
• Participants reported international growth now featuring in long term business strategies.
• 5 out of the 11 participating EIP companies have taken on more staff since Sept 2008
• Participants reported a total of £300,000 of increased revenue attributable to participation on the course since Sept 2008

An EIP course for 2010 is in the planning stage and details will be announced soon.