Digital for Business is a Local Enterprise Office (LEO) initiative designed to give micro and small Irish businesses a competitive digital edge. It provides fully funded access to expert consultancy to help identify, assess, and implement effective digital solutions.
Review current systems to identify operational gaps.
Optimisation
Implementation Guidance
Do You Have These Issues? Does this sound like you?
We help Irish SMEs work smarter by combining Lean thinking, sustainability practices, and digital systems now enhanced with AI.
Helping your business work smarter with the right digital tools — up to 50% funding available
A free, independent digital assessment from your Local Enterprise Office (LEO)-Delivered by anapprovedconsultant (like AppAdvisor) to help your business identify how digital tools can improveproductivity, efficiency, and growth.
Digital for Business Application Form → Contact your LEO office
It is important to note that whatever software or solutions is listed on your Digital for
Business report – is the only list that can be used by you to claim funding after step 3 below
Co-funding to help implement digital tools that will improve productivity and competitiveness. Funding covers up to 50% of eligible costs, to a max of €2,500 (on a €5,000 spend).
Grow Digital Grant Details → contact your LEO office
Covers NEW software subscription costs and implementationand training fees- does not cover existing software expansion or hardware upgrades.
Note: Tools must not be purchased before funding approval.
AppAdvisor is a business improvement consultancy with over 35 years of operational experience. We help Irish businesses cut admin, reduce costs, and simplify operations using innovative, AI-powered systems and proven process improvement methods.
From process automation to more intelligent decision-making, we embed practical AI tools into every stage of your business improvement journey.
Joe Connaughton brings over 35 years of experience inbusiness, technology, and sport to his role as senior consultant at Appadvisor. His method is grounded in one principle: work smarter, not harder – now with the most transformative tool yet: Artificial Intelligence.
Joe has lived through multiple technology revolutions: the rise of personal computing in his early days when he founded a very successful ICT support company. Also,the spread of enterprise IT, and the explosion of mobile and cloud systems in his second business venture in an internationally focussed mobile app publishing company. Each changed the way businesses operate. However, none compares to AI, a shift so profound that it redefines productivity, decision-making, and how work itself is done.
His background spans enterprise IT deployments, operational leadership in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and three decades of competitive sport. He has seen how complexity, jargon, and trend-chasing derail progress. His approach strips that back: use the right tools, simplify and apply them with discipline, and always focus on tangible business outcomes.
At AppAdvisor, Joe integrates practical AI into business improvement, not hype, but real gains in time, cost, and clarity. From workflow automation to predictive planning, he helps clients adopt AI as part of a bigger strategy rooted in Lean principles, strategic foresight, and cultural clarity.
Joe doesn’t follow trends; he aligns tools with purpose. In today’s noise-heavy landscape, his value lies in cutting through it.
Joe(y) is a former Roscommon GAA player and now a fanatical supporter, an occasional cyclist and a very poor golfer.
Jack combines deep technical expertise with a practical, no-nonsense approach to digital transformation. As the next generation behind Appadvisor, he brings a modern edge to the consultancy’s long-standing reputation, continuing the work of his father, Joe, with a focus on real-world results for Irish SMEs.
Armed with a Business Information Systems degree from NUIG and hands-on experience in IT, Jack has worked with SMEs across Ireland, USA, Canada and Australia on projects involving cloud solutions, automation, cybersecurity, and digital workflows. His focus is on cutting the noise, simplifying systems, and freeing up time.
Where Joe brings decades of operational and business wisdom, Jack delivers fast, focused digital execution, from selecting the right tools to eliminating wasted effort through intelligent systems. His work spans a range of areas, including workflow automation, cloud migration, social media strategy, and customer experience enhancement.
Jack helps businesses make technology serve the company, not the other way around.
When I’m not sorting out someone’s digital mess, I’m usually knee-deep in something physical , hanging off a chin-up bar, chasing a football through muck, or halfway through some mad health phase I read about the night before. I’ve a habit of getting stuck into stuff that’s hard, awkward, or slightly cracked, and honestly, that’s the way I like it.
