InBus_Win09_1-55:InBusiness 1-61 11/12/2009 16:16 Page 23
Industry Overview | FEATURE
Where to
NEXT?
+++++++++++++++
As Irish businesses get ready to
leave 2009 behind, will 2010 bring
a brighter landscape? InBusiness
takes a sector-by-sector look at the
year just past and the year ahead.
+++++++++++++++
WHEN HISTORIANS LOOK BACK on 2009,
they will most likely consider it to be the wake
up call or helpful shock that a generation
needed to get its house in order again. For
those of us who have to live through it though,
thoughts of 2009 will probably invoke
memories of a year that is best forgotten, put
firmly behind us, and never mentioned again.
But how will we ever wipe out the memory of
one of the most turbulent business periods that
many of us have ever experienced? Sure, the
‘80s were tough, but they didn’t follow a
gargantuan period of economic enlargement
anywhere near the scale that formed another
period of our economic history that we will
undoubtedly long for, albeit without inflated primarily in the form of cutting costs – and that sector can revive itself. On page 31, Ruraidh
asset price and credit bubbles. The answer is is likely to continue in 2010. The retail sector, for Conlon O’Reilly speaks to Alan Nolan of the
that it won’t be easy, but there are already example, was one of the hardest hit industries Society of the Irish Motor Industry, David
encouraging signs that we are putting the past and has suffered more than most in 2009. Most Fitzsimons of Retail Excellence Ireland and
in its place and moving on. With a mini-budget, retailers also acknowledge that the trend will Florence Stanley of CBRE to get their views on
Lisbon Treaties, the formation of a National continue in the first quarter of 2010 at the very what lies ahead for retailers next year.
Asset Management Agency and groups set up least. The VAT rate differential between the
to take a scythe to public spending – all in 12 North and South has rubbed salt in the wounds CAN DIGITAL DOMINATE?
tumultuous months – the very fact that we’ve of southern retailers who have seen priceless One sector that has promised so much,
survived so many blows and continue to move trade (roughly worth €400m to the Exchequer) especially in the last decade, is the digital
forward is certainly cause for optimism and a disappear across the border. However, despite economy. The dot.com boom and bust at the
confirmation that there is a steely resolve so much adversity, those within the industry beginning of the decade left the industry
among the Irish business community. have demonstrated a self-preservation sense of teetering on the brink as investors kept their
ingenuity, a prime example being the many distance to wait and see what would happen
RETAIL CHALLENGES ‘Shop Local’ campaigns, which are supported next. Thankfully, recovery came quickly and
Of course, every sector continues to face its own by Chambers, set-up throughout the country. It since then, modest but positive strides have
challenges – our united objective comes is with schemes and ideas like this that the been made to bring the sector to a point where
InBusiness Winter 09 23
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