EXECUTIVE CHAIR
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scaling because they’ve proven the businessmodel. In the past it would probably take US$5m to do that – and of course a lot longer. “It creates more competition which overall is good, because
that barrier to entry has been lowered. If we’re going to create jobs and improve the world economy we need innovation and faster innovation. The world’s becoming a knowledge-based economy. We need to make humans more productive. The cloud, and this sort of accelerated innovation is, I believe, a real driving factor here.”
THE IRISH ADVANTAGE It is the SaaSmodel that hasworked sowell for
Salesforce.com, today a multi-billion dollar company and recently named the world’s fourth fastest-growing company by
Fortune.The choice to bring Engine Yard to Irelandmakes sensewhen you see that Dillonwas behind the move to Dublin by
Salesforce.com,where he was CEO until 2002. “Back in 2000 we were successful in the United States, but
FACTORS While this certainly influenced Dillon’s choice to establish of- fices here inDublin, therewere a host of factors involved in the decision, he says. “Well Ireland has a 10 to 20-year-old history of technology
companies locating European operations here. It’s a friendly business climate, there’s a good labour force – small but good – it’swell educated generally speaking and it’s easy to attract peo- ple to themetropolitan Dublin area. “We found thatwe can get foreign language expertise here, if
we need Italian speakers or French speakers orGerman speak- ers, even if we import them from other European countries people like to come and live in Dublin. It’s a fun city, it’smetro- politan. For tech companies generally speaking the people that we employ tend to be on the younger side, and they like the en- vironment here. “Plus Dublin is also modern from a technology standpoint,
there’s good internet connectivity here, there’s good universi- ties here and there’s a good tech community and tech-
‘Dublin is alsomodern froma technology standpoint, there’s good internet connectivity here, there’s good universities and there’s a good tech community and tech-orientation’
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knewtherewas a bigmarket in Europe, andwewanted tomove there as the next expansion stage,” says Dillon. “At the timewe had customers in 30 or 40 countries. Even though we didn’t have any presence in those countries customers had found us because of the internet.” When Dillon looked at Europe the traditional model was to
open up a sales office in London, because of the English lan- guage connection and the scale of such a large city, he says. “It was sort of a logical default for America- based software com- panies at the time.” While on a trip to London to investigate this new move, Dil-
lon received a call fromthree guysworking inOracle inDublin. “They said, ‘We’ve heard what you’re doing, we think it’s fasci- nating, we’d love to talk to you’ and I said, ‘Alright, fine’. “I met the three of them and they were wonderful, but they
were inDublin. Then it dawned onme that I could use the same businessmodel that I was using in California to cover all of the United States fromDublin.” And indeed
Salesforce.com did open offices inDublin instead
of London, and today employs some 400 people,who handle the majority of the European operations. “It worked just great, so now we are doing the same thing with Engine Yard,” says Dillon.
orientation.” And there’s another factor, Dillon smiles. “Thismight sound
a little odd but everybody likes the Irish. If I decide I want a European manager and I pick a French person, the Germans may not be happy, if I pick a German person the English may not like it. There are a lot of pan-European similarities but there are also a lot of cultural intricacies in the Europeanmar- ket. I have found that going to market in Europe from Ireland is extremely productive.” He is also very taken with the Irish work ethic. “When we
hire an Irishman or Irishwoman there’s sort of respect for the employer, and they give you that extra 10pc.” And of course there is our favourable tax rate. “The business
climate is favourable, labour laws are attractive. It’s also a good place to use as an international facility from a tax structure standpoint and that’s still very attractive. “Most tech companies aspire to be global. So even if you’re
headquartered inAmerica,when the dust settles, you’ll get half of your revenue fromthe internationalmarkets at least. So you need to make sure that you have international IP where you want that, international income where you want, and the right tax structure. It may not be the most exciting thing we deal with but it’s important.”
Issue 3 Autumn/Winter 2011 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 23
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