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Report Highlights: On Thursday, 21 October, Host in Ireland released a Special Edition Talent Report titled “Untapped Potential - The Data Centre Career Opportunity”. Today we are putting a spotlight on the commentary by Dermot Reidy from Enterprise Ireland.
At different moments in time, businesses and industries face a turning-point in how they grow and evolve. Many times this is due to circumstances beyond their control, making the challenges even greater. Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel Corporation, famously called these “strategic inflection points”.
During the 2008 economic downturn, many Irish businesses faced such a dilemma. Companies weren’t sure they were going to make it through the economic crisis. The problem came from the fact that, at that time, they didn’t have a vision for where their business or industry could go. They were highly operational with low overhead, etc, but, generally, had not concerned themselves with investment in the future planning or technology that was needed.
At the time, I was new to Enterprise Ireland and we consulted with these construction services companies on how they could differentiate themselves to make them unique in the market. We looked at how they could reconfigure themselves and their supply chains, in terms of capability and competencies, for the new normal. They began to understand the depth and breadth of their experience and how that would be valuable to a broader audience, in this specific case data centre design and construction. Those that were able to absorb these changes and reconfigure their business transitioned from being highly operational to being effectively operational and market driven and are still successfully contributing to Ireland’s economy today.
Many of these companies play a significant role in the Irish data centre ecosystem. Construction, engineering, professional services firms, etc, and have now grown their business model to not only be successful in Ireland, but also in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. They have established subsidiaries and built a general business pipeline for themselves in what we call a hub-and-spoke model. The head office is located in Ireland and the operations are spread worldwide.
This generates high value jobs in Ireland and opportunities for tradespeople, technicians, apprentices and more both domestically and abroad, resulting in thousands of Irish jobs. For example, at the top-end, many of my clients have grown from approximately 500 employees in 2008/2009 to now well in excess of 1,000 employees. This data replicates itself right down the top twenty list of clients in all aspects and specialities of construction services.
To read more DOWNLOAD THE SPECIAL EDITION TALENT REPORT HERE
Differentiating Ireland for Economic Growth
Dermot Reidy
Strategic Advisor & Client Portfolio Manager - Construction Services
Enterprise Ireland
To watch the Report Launch Webinar replay and hear Dermot Reidy speaking click here