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 an approved consultant (like AppAdvisor) to help your business identify how digital tools can improve productivity, 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 maximum of €5,000 (on a €10,000 spend).
Grow Digital Grant Details → contact your LEO office
Covers NEW software subscription costs and implementation and 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 in business, 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 leads AppAdvisor's AI advisory and digital strategy work. He holds a First Class Honours degree in Business Information Systems from the University of Galway, is CompTIA Security+ certified, and has worked with SMEs across Ireland, the USA, Canada and Australia on cloud systems, automation, cybersecurity and practical AI.
Where Joe brings decades of business judgement, Jack brings the detail: the right tools, workflow automation and AI strategy. Our work is advisory first, and when a client wants hands-on help putting the plan in place, Jack can take that on privately.
The goal is simple. Make technology serve the business, not the other way around.
