»
IN PROFILE
largest employer froma foreign direct investment [FDI] point of viewwas a companymaking t-shirts – Fruit of the LoominDone- gal,” he says. “Of course in 1990 the International Financial Serv- icesCentrewas only commencing its activities, and Intelwas only beginning to break ground in Ireland. Today Intel has invested overUS$7bn dollars in this country.” He says it is crucial that Ireland continues this transformation,
which has seen the nature of the jobs in these largemultinationals change quite radically. “Even Intel,what they are doing today in Leixlip has nothing to
do with what they came here for in the first place. And IBMwho set up a big campus inMulhuddart in 1995/6, none of the original jobs that were there over the first four years are there today. Yet there aremore peopleworking in IBMtoday and onmuch higher value
activities.The transformation has been enormous.” It is hard to imagine now, but Ireland’s success in the internet
area dates back to just 2004,with the entry ofGoogle. “Todaywe have all of the top 10 ‘born on theweb’ companies here in Ireland – e-Bay, PayPal, Twitter, LinkedIn, Zynga, Facebook and so on. It is that constant transformation that is so vital,” says O’Leary. “It never stops at all.Wemust be constantly going after newcompa- nies in newtechnology or businessmodel areas.”
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION But it’s not enough just to focus on attracting newcompanies and activities into Ireland, O’Leary stresses. It is also vital that exist- ing companies here in Ireland are part of the transformation. “It is very important that all companies are looking at their
technology capabilities and investing in increasing their levels of technology andintheir skills andtraining, andlooking atnewways of driving down costs. “Ways of doing the latter, for example, include process devel-
opment, paying attention to costs and the R&D stage when de- signing newproducts, or even focusing on energy efficiency. “At IDAIrelandwe have an agenda that encompasses technol-
ogy uplift, skills uplift, process development, research develop- ment and energy saving and we support the companies to transform,” explains O’Leary. “And at the same time they will be transforming the totality of their business in Ireland and that’s a big feature of ourwork. “We already have nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
in the world, 17 of the top 25 medical device companies, eight of the top 10ITcompanies out of theUS.When you have such a high market share, you have to support and encourage them to con- stantly re-invest and transformoperations.We are not just about attracting newcompanies into Ireland.Workingwith our existing client companies is a key part of ourwork.”
EMERGING PLAYERS Key too in IDAIreland’s overall strategy is the need to attract new and emerging players.While Irelandmay be best known interna- tionally for the presence of giants like Intel, Pfizer, Apple, and Johnson&Johnson, over the last two to three yearsO’Leary and his teamhavebeenputting a greater concentrationinto the second tier ormid-tier companies, companies that would have revenues ofUS$100mtoUS$750m.
6 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 3 Autumn/Winter 2011
What ismore, he says, another key target are those high poten-
tial emerging companies looking to internationalise. “We are very mindful that in technology platforms like cloud,
companies are internationalising earlier,” says O’Leary. “So we have set up a team between Dublin, Limerick, New York and Mountain View to target emerging companies, companies that might have a maximum of €20m in revenue, or that might have none at all but have been through, say, two rounds of venture cap- ital (VC) investment. “Inactual fact sincewe set thatunitupinJanuary 2010,wehave
had over 30 investments from early-stage companies, with the likes ofMarketo,EngineYardorSangart, so that strategyhasbeen quite productive.We want to be sure we are active with the top tier, the second tier and the emerging companies.” The success in attracting such emerging and innovative players
to Ireland can be attributed to many factors, but none more so than our track record, according toO’Leary. “The ease of doing business here, the English language, all of
these things feedinto
thedecision-makingprocess.These are very innovative companies so the skills base is very important to them, the talentwehave
inIreland.They alsowant to becomeprofitable, so an attractive corporation tax environment is key, and then of course the technology capability. “But clearly our track record in FDI,whether it’s large or small
companies, plays a major role.We already have a lot of technol- ogy industries here, we have strong clusters of like-minded com-
panies.That has great appeal.” He points to the likes of Marketo, which has a partnership
arrangement with
Salesforce.com. The fact that
Salesforce.com has amajor presence here would have been influential in the de- cision-making process, he says. “Our policy is to go after the leaders very early on in the new
technologies, products and businessmodels. It is a fact that if you get the first few, they build up.Zyngawhen they invested said that one of themain reasons they came to Ireland, apart fromit being a great place to do business,was the fact that they have a big part- nership with Facebook in the US, and Facebook is here. It was a ‘no-brainer’ to use their language.”
BEYOND THE US While theUS remains the vitalmarket forO’Leary and his team, they are also looking beyond that traditionally strong relationship between Ireland and theUS. “We have actually increased our footprint in the US and we
think there is plentymore business there, sowe’re not going to di- lute that effort one bit, but we’ve beingmoving a lot of resources into the growthmarkets too, particularly India and China. “We have opened seven offices in recent years in Shanghai and
Shenzhen,Mumbai and Bangalore, Singapore,Moscow and Sao Paolo, and that is all to dowith diversifying sources of FDI.We’re seeing more coming out of India than China, but we’ve invested for the long haul. “India has a larger suite of companies that are strong interna-
tionally in the sectors Ireland is strong in, so a lot of technology companies, a lot of business process outsourcing, a lot of pharma. In China you have to interact farmore with the government sys-
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 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80