Ireland: Gael force for the 21st century

After the car rounded a curve on the N8, my heart leaped as the Rock of Cashel came into view. It is a majestic sight, crowning a limestone escarpment that rises out of the vale of Tipperary. The view from the top is magnificent: one gazes across sheep-grazed fields with the Galtee Mountains looking like the backs of whales rising from a swell off to the southwest. On the rock are the remains of several ecclesiastical buildings, among them Cormac's Chapel, the first Romanesque church in Ireland. Before it was a center of power for the Church, the Rock of Cashel was the seat of the Eoghanacht Kings of Munster for some eight centuries. Around A.D. 450, St. Patrick, going about the business of baptizing King Aengus of Munster, accidentally thrust his crosier into Aengus' foot. Aengus, thinking this was part of the ceremony, said nothing. This legend, while it has value on many levels and can thus be interpreted in many ways, for me illustrates not only the zeal with which the Irish embrace new ideas, but also the tolerance they show to foreigners (St. Patrick was a native of what is now Scotland). And for one group of foreigners in particular, Americans, Ireland can seem so familiar. It is a familiarity that has come from many sources: films, books or tales told at family gatherings (I believe there are an estimated 40 million Americans that can claim Irish ancestry). It is a country where it is easy to feel at home.

IDA Ireland

Although Ireland is an old country, it has a young population. By the year 2000, four out of ten Irish will be under 25. A major reason for this young population is that for most of this century Ireland was in a fierce economic slump that had lead to the mass exodus of young Irish to foreign shores in search of work.1 To reverse this Irish diaspora, the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) of Ireland set in motion longrange plans to make Ireland a model for economic development that would lead the way for Europe into the 21 st century. David O'Donovan, business development manager, International Services Division at the IDA in Dublin, explained to me that as part of the IDA's long-range plans, it began recruiting software companies in the 1980s. A turning point was reached in 1984 when Microsoft and Lotus located facilities there - many other software companies followed suite. O'Donovan said the IDA tries to pick a flagship company in its field in the hope that others will follow. And many have followed. Over the past two decades, more than 1,000 overseas companies have established bases in Ireland for trading to European and worldwide markets. Its advantages have made Ireland a center for European telesales and teleservices operations. A short list of just a few of the U.S. companies that have opened call centers includes American Airlines, Best Western, Corel Corp., Dell Computer, Hertz, IBM, ITT Sheraton Reservations Corp., Lotus Development, Quarterdeck Office Systems, Radisson Hotels, US Robotics and Westin Hotels & Resorts.

This past December, An Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D., announced that "average annual growth from 1994 to the present has been between seven and eight percent since 1994, and has been running at an average five percent since the turnaround in 1987. This high growth has been noninflationary, principally because of moderate wage agreements with the social partners as part of a wider series of agreed programs with employers and trade unions going back to 1987." Ahern went on to explain the importance of foreign direct investment, especially from the United States. For example:

* "The U.S. is Ireland's largest source of inward investment - U.S. firms now employ more than 65,000 people here.

* "U.S. inward investment accounts for 27 percent of total manufacturing employment, and 40 percent of total Irish exports.

* "Since 1980, nearly 40 percent of all new inward investments in European electronics by the U.S. has come to Ireland.

"The investment has helped to transform the structure and profile of Irish industry:

* "Nine of the world's top ten pharmaceutical companies now have significant operations in Ireland.

* "Almost a third of the PCs sold in Europe come from companies based in Ireland.

* "Ireland is the capital of Europe for software localisation and production.

* "Dublin's International Financial Services Centre has developed into a significant world financial centre."

Among the many reasons so many international companies have located in Ireland are government grants towards start-up costs, including capital investment, training and employment costs. The grants are expedited with minimal red tape through the auspices of IDA Ireland. There is also in place a low tax rate of 10 percent on profits derived from manufacturing and qualifying services until at least December 31, 2010. This pro-business climate has proved beneficial to both Ireland and international corporations.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has reported that for more than a decade U.S. manufacturing companies have achieved after-tax returns of 25 percent a year, on average, on their investments in Ireland.

Illuminated Manuscripts TO DigitalTechnology Education In Ireland

Education has long been valued in Ireland. Irish priests were among the vanguard of keeping education alive during the "Dark Ages," establishing monastic sites such as Clonmacnoise, Kells and Glendalough throughout Ireland, and indeed their influence was felt throughout Europe. These sites produced great testaments of faith and artistic beauty such as the Book of Durrow and the illuminated manuscripts of St. Gall in Switzerland. The great Irish literary tradition continued through Swift, Goldsmith, Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Behan, Heaney and so many others.

This love of learning and tradition is carried on today in the Irish educational system. The 1995 independent IMD World Competitiveness Report ranked Ireland as the best in Europe for the quality of education that everyone receives. Six out of every ten of Ireland's third-level students major in engineering, science or business studies subjects and many students become proficient in more than one foreign language, usually German and French.

Colleges and universities have long collaborated with industry, particularly in emerging high-technology sectors. Last year Enterprise & Employment Minister Richard Bruton, T.D., and Education Minister Niamh Bhreathnach, T.D., announced the government's Action Plan on Skills, which was created to ensure that there will be a significant supply of qualified young people to fill vacancies now and into the future. The Action Plan is designed to increase the number of graduates with computing and foreign language skills. A Telemarketing Services Education Course has also been instituted at the university level.

Although Ireland boasts a young, highly educated workforce, the costs of operating in Ireland (including payroll costs that are half of those in Germany and lower than Belgium, The Netherlands, France and the U.K.) are lower than most other European countries.

Telecom Ireland

Obviously, telecom costs and services are a high priority for any company thinking about setting up an international call center. Telecom Ireland, Ireland's national carrier and a $3 billion company, has stated its objective is to remain the lowest-cost service provider in Europe for international traffic. Beside providing a 100 percent digital national network, a recent strategic partnership with telecommunications companies KPN of The Netherlands and Telia of Sweden has enabled Telecom Ireland to broaden its international products portfolio by establishing Telecom Ireland as the exclusive distributor of AT&TUnisource products in Ireland.

Telecom Ireland's Managing Director of Corporate Business, Thomas Svalstedt, said of the alliance, "Through the AT&T-Unisource partnership, Telecom Ireland can offer companies with a base in Ireland an advanced set of products and services and improved global reach through AT&T-Unisource and WorldPartners. Through these consortia, Telecom Ireland's customers enjoy cost-effective, seamless, pan-European and global network services."

According to Margaret Molloy, vice president of marketing at Telecom Ireland's U.S. headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, the company's track record in assisting U.S. companies establish global call centers in Ireland has meant that Telecom Ireland has acquired a wealth of expertise in the industry. "We have worked with Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups. When a company contracts Telecom Ireland, it gets more than telecommunications services, it gets the knowledge of consultants, project managers and account managers with unparalleled industry experience. U.S. companies can avail of this expertise free of charge from Telecom Ireland's call center specialists in Stamford and San Jose, California."

In 1997 Telecom Ireland opened Call Center Incubators in both Dublin and in the Shannon Free Zone, which is just outside Limerick and adjacent to Shannon International Airport. The Incubators are fully equipped call centers available for short-, medium- and long-term rent. The facilities are targeted both at companies that are waiting to have their own facilities built and at those wishing to set up a call center without having to make a large capital investment. The Incubators have been such a success, plans are underway to build additional centers throughout the country.

But Telecom Ireland is doing more than just providing low prices and a broad range of services; it is making active investments into the future of telecommunications and how the digital world of the 21 st century will change society. It recently committed $22 million and selected the town of Ennis to become the world's first "Information Age Town." Alfie Kane, CEO of Telecom Ireland, said of the project, "The idea is to blanket a complete town with all of the communications tools of the Information Age - to see what happens when an entire community becomes wired."

The knowledge that is accumulated through this project about how this technology will be used and what its effects upon the public will be of interest to businesses throughout the world, for it should help guide companies to make intelligent decisions in marketing, sales and customer service in the 21 st century. Stentor

A recent entrant in the telecommunications provider field is Stentor plc. Headed by its dynamic young chief executive, Patrick Cruise O'Brien, Stentor was started two years ago to make it viable for companies to set up in Ireland. O'Brien told me Stentor set out to build a pan-Atlantic network, linking Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S., to seamlessly provide services as if the company were in the U.S.

Stentor provides direct interconnection with AT&T, MCI and other carriers for overflow facilities or launching campaigns in U.S.

MATRIXX Marketing, (which has 17 call centers in the U.K.), Fanueil Group and ITT Sheraton are among Stentor's current call center customers. O'Brien stressed that since Stentor is a small company, it has the ability to address each customer's problems individually. Among its many services, Stentor receives traffic from the U.K., provides Internet links, remote LAN access, packet switching, voice mail and videoconferencing. Currently Stentor has four switches in Ireland, and one in Buffalo, New York and Manhattan, New York, respectively.

"If a company is considering expanding to Europe, they can locate in Ireland. Stentor fully and seamlessly integrates with the company's existing network. It is the only company in the world doing this," said O'Brien. Stentor is set up on the AT&T network. It provides DNIS and ANI, and can divert callbacks. One Stentor client in Ireland takes advantage of these services to answer Spanish- and French-speaking callers from Florida and Canada. Stentor services will allow U.S. companies to provide graveyard-shift coverage in the U.S. from Ireland. Stentor services are designed to help companies set up an operation in Europe that is cost-effective as it optimizes eff ciencies. Stentor's global virtual private network (VPN) allows corporate telephone systems to be duplicated anywhere over the network.

O'Brien said Stentor's plan is to target existing call centers in the U.K. that want to do business in the U.S. and U.S. companies that want to expand into Europe without necessarily setting up call centers.

With the market in Europe expanding, O'Brien is optimistic for the future of teleservices in Ireland. Among the advantages of Ireland, O'Brien lists: "cost; the ability to get 18 to 20 hours a day from a call center; the ready availability of articulate, educated English speakers; a pro-business culture; and it's a great place to be."

A Brief Call Center Tour

With companies like Telecom Ireland and Stentor providing advanced telecommunications services, and government agencies like IDA Ireland providing benefits and simplifying the relocation process, it's small wonder that employment in the teleservices sector is projected to grow to 10,000 in the next two years.

For a firsthand look at companies that have already taken advantage of the benefits of conducting telesales and teleservices in Ireland, the urbane, experienced and amiable Finn Gallen, manager, Media Relations Europe at IDA Ireland guided me about the Dublin area. The first stop on our itinerary was Gateway 2000.

Gateway 2000

Gateway 2000 began operations in Europe in October 1993. At the Clonshaugh Industrial Estate in northeast Dublin, Gateway 2000 maintains a combined marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing, fulfillment and tech support center. With assistance from IDA Ireland, the company's Dublin operation was up and running in six weeks.

Director of sales John Shepheard explained to me the history and workings of Gateway 2000 in Dublin. The company started with 105 employees and $120 million in revenue and has grown to 1,600 employees.

One end of Gateway's complex consists of the manufacturing facility. Here workers constantly scurry about computers that are in various stages of assembly. Each Gateway computer is manufactured to meet the individual specifications of each customer. The completed computers are then rushed on their way to people throughout Europe. (A UPS facility is conveniently located next door.)

The sales department consists of the desktop group, portables group and major accounts group. Inbound calls are generated on Freephone lines. Calls are made into and received mainly from the large markets of the U.K., France and Germany. The reps are arranged in small groups with names like "Club Med" and "Twelve Monkeys," which creates a relaxed yet competitive atmosphere.

In addition to the traditional telephone support, Gateway customers are provided an innovative support option. Gateway has recently instated an online chat room, monitored by Gateway tech support representatives, where customers with similar problems are able

to draw on the added knowledge of their fellow users. One of the benefits of this is that one user may have the answer another is searching for and thus save time for both the Gateway representative and the customer, which will lead to greater efficiency for both. One use for chat rooms should be that they become cauldrons wherein business relationships are forged and communities are built where commerce of both ideas and economy are exchanged amongst people of similar ideas, likes, problems, etc.

Shepheard was enthusiastic when speaking of his workforce. He told me that the linguistic abilities to be found in the Irish workforce allow for flexibility. Seventy-five percent of the workforce at Gateway is Irish, with foreign nationals from other European Union member countries accounting for the other 25 percent.

Oracle

Database solutions provider Oracle located its call center operation in Dublin in June 1996. As he escorted me about the pleasant offices of Oracle Direct Marketing Division (DMD) in the East Point Business Park in Dublin, managing director, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Peter Scott told me that Oracle's call center handles 1,000,000 calls per year. Outbound sales calls account for 60 to 70 percent of the calls. The Sales Unit qualifies opportunities and drives revenue.

The staff of 250 in this facility uses 20 languages to conduct business for Oracle. The DMD has 180 to 190 people on the phones. Account teams at Oracle consist of phone and field sales. Scott explained that because of the nature of the intrinsic social and language communication difficulties of making calls to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 80 percent of the representatives on the phones are foreign nationals. These agents all use an inhouse-developed contact management software.

As part of its long-term goals, Oracle has instituted a career path for agents, where they progress into field sales. The staff is well trained, with a threeweek introductory training period and ongoing development. Workers are kept sharp and up-to-date on the latest sales and customer service skills at wellappointed onsite training facilities.

Scott told me that Oracle decided to locate in Ireland for several reasons: employment legislation that is advantageous to business; excellent phone infrastructure; the ease of relocation of foreign nationals from other European Union member countries (the excitement of Dublin is a magnet for young workers, plus it is not bursting at the seams like many other European capitals); and the fact that the site is near major air and sea transportation facilities. An added plus for Oracle was the government tax of 10 percent through 2010. (For more information on Oracle's call center in Dublin, see page 26 of the August 1997 issue of Telemarketing & Call Center Solutions TM.)

UPS

I visited David Rafferty, site manager, Europe Region, UPS, at the active and well-lighted call center UPS maintains at a bustling commercial center in Tallaght, in the southern outskirts of Dublin.

The call center, which opened in August 1995, has 150 agents answering 10,000 calls a day. The primary geographic region the agents take calls from covers 40 percent of Germany, but this busy center also fields calls to arrange UPS pickups in France, Austria and Belgium.

Rafferty commended the work habits of his agents, 40 percent of whom are Irish nationals. From a catwalk that runs above the call center, Rafferty explained that the agents work in selfdirected work groups. This arrangement helps foster competition between the groups and he can use the goodnatured national or geographic rivalries between the groups to stimulate performance.

All agents receive four weeks of initial training and are monitored on a monthly basis to ensure they are performing up to UPS standards and also to help them learn how to perform their jobs better.

The facility has training rooms that can accommodate 20 agents at a time. The computers in the training rooms are all loaded with the Windows-based in-house software program with call tracking that the agents use on the floor. This helps them become familiar with the programs they are using and speeds up the introduction of new programs.

Rafferty told me that among the reasons UPS decided to locate in Ireland was because of the superior digital telephone infrastructure, the low labor costs and the high level of education of Irish workers. And as the majority of his staff is young, Dublin is a great town for attracting quality workers, as young people always have a grand time in Dublin. He said UPS is satisfied with efforts so far. And indeed it must be, since it employs 400 workers in two call centers in Ireland.

SOFTBANK Services Group

It was a rainy afternoon when I met with Pat Minogue, general manager, SOFTBANK Services Group Europe, but that did not dampen his enthusiasm for the work SOFTBANK is doing in Ireland. Indeed, I noticed everyone on his staff had the same enthusiasm.

SOFTBANK (formerly UC&A) is an international teleservices company that has its main U.S. offices in Buffalo, New York. At its offices in the Sandyford Industrial Estate in the southeastern Dublin suburb of Sandyford, SOFTBANK maintains a staff of 130. Eighty of these employees are TSRs and a staff of ten works in the warehouse. From this facility, SOFTBANK does marketing, sales and customer support. Among the clients the SOFTBANK Services Group Europe takes calls for are Corel and 3Com.

As he led me on a tour of SOFTBANK's call center, Minogue told me that SOFTBANK has been in Ireland since 1990. SOFTBANK makes and receives calls mainly from Germany and France, but it also covers every country in Europe and as demand for sales, marketing and customer services is moving into Eastern Europe, so is SOFTBANK.

SOFTBANK's telecommunications service provider is TEIS (a subsidiary of Telecom Ireland). Minogue explained to me that SOFTBANK uses customized intelligent call-routing software that has a built-in structured-escalation feature. Calls coming into the call center are broken down by media source and by country, which ensures that whatever the type of customer interaction coming into the call center it will be handled in a timely fashion by the correct representative.

SOFTBANK has a mix of foreign nationals and Irish as Minogue told me that it is often hard to find the combination of languages they need from within the the indiginous Irish workforce.

SOFTBANK is dedicated to maintaining the quality of its staff by training and developing career paths for them. Agents taking support calls are given the opportunity to move up to the sales group.

To ensure its staff maintains peak operational efficiency, SOFTBANK conducts ongoing, regular training for its agents, which includes training on SOFTBANK's customized in-house software. Agents are monitored regularly for training purposes to maintain the sharpness of their performance.

Minogue told me that among the reasons SOFTBANK decided to locate a call center in Ireland were the facts that it is easy to get a well-educated, multilingual staff in Ireland and that labor costs are lower in Ireland than in the majority of the rest of Europe.

In Parting

All of the people I spoke with about their call centers in Ireland were pleased with the decision their companies had made to set up in Ireland. All praised the government's pro-business climate, incentives and tax structure. All were pleased with the telecommunications infrastructure and the costs of doing business in Ireland. But all seemed to place at the top of the list the quality, education and enthusiasm of the workforce. This of course springs from the hard-working but fun-loving nature of the Irish people. You have to love a country that takes as its slogan "Cead Mile Failte" or "One Hundred Thousand Welcomes." Even if you don't decide to locate in Ireland, you owe it to yourself to go there. Besides the breathtaking beauty of the Irish countryside, you will always be able to find someone willing to share a conversation over a pint of Guinness. Perhaps it will be me.

Actually, the Irish economy has had numerous obstacles to overcome since the Great Famine of the middle of the last century. Well, the Irish economy was a bit sluggish during the seven hundred years of rule by the Normans and the English, and for a couple of centuries before that one could say it was held down due to the fact that most exports were forcibly seized by Viking raiders performing some of the original "Duty Free" shopping. Although one must give the Norsemen their due, as many did set down roots and put up buildings - they did settle Arklow, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Limerick, Wexford and Wicklow among other Irish towns.

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Apr 1998
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