DATA





   


Ronan, how can digital drive economic growth across Europe? “We really feel that it’s early morning on the web, we are waking up to what is going to be an exciting day and we’re just starting to understand what those possibilities are. If we look at the penetration of digital technology into businesses and into people’s lives, on the one hand we feel it’s pervasive and on the other hand there is still such a long way to go. There’s also a very significant wave of new technologies that are only starting to emerge that have yet to reach any significant penetration that are going to create lots of new opportunities in the world of data, opportunity to create lots of insight, and in turn is going to lead to a new wave of economic growth. But if we look today at small businesses who have embraced digital technology, we’ve seen that they are growing


typically twice as fast as their competitors, they are exporting twice as much and the growth in their employment number is twice as high. And these are not digital companies, these are not ‘born on the web’ companies, these are traditional companies who are embracing the technology. There’s lots of evidence that those companies who are embracing digital are driving significant economic impact for themselves and we see this has a long way to go before it’s fully rolled out.”


Google’s organisational culture was ground-breaking when it arrived. How has it influenced Irish businesses? “We were a path finder, we were the first ‘born on the web’ company to land on Silicon Docks, the place was still under construction. But in the


30 INNOVATION IRELAN REVIEW


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60