The invisible thicket of telecommunication innovation has grown denser in the last decade with all the major European countries vying to attract American manufacturing and service companies doing business in Europe. Few succeed without the lure of a proven state-of-the-art telephone network and not many have been as committed as Telecom Ireland to the task of improving telephone service between the United States and Europe. The local, long-distance and international carrier in Ireland has emerged as a true pioneer of technological advance with standards of commitment and responsiveness already proving irresistible to hundreds of top international and manufacturing companies.
There are over 900 of these companies in Ireland involved in a range of industries including computer and chip manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, aerospace and software development and support. They include companies such as DEC, Intel, Apple, Amdahl, Borland, and, more recently, 3 Com, Cabletron and Dell. All have set up their European manufacturing operations in Ireland.
For an increasing number of these companies, it makes good business sense to put telecommunications hubs there, linking the United States with Ireland and fanning out to the other European sites. All of the businesses depend on reliable, secure telecommunications, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for their operations to work effectively. With its direct connections to the United States, and direct access to all the European fiber optic cables, Ireland is the perfect location for the hub of any sophisticated private business network.
“No U.S. company wanting to grow can stay out of Europe,” says Jim Searing, head of New York’s Ernst & Young. Those that make the investment cannot do so without the reliability of a great telecommunications system. That’s one message Telecom Ireland wants American business to hear loud and clear, and they are bringing it home to the U.S. on a local level. The company recently established its first overseas office in Stamford, Connecticut.
“With so many American multinational companies doing business in Ireland,” says Aidan Gordon, who set up the Connecticut office and now heads Telecom’s International Division in Dublin, “it was important to increase the level of commitment with local U.S. sales support.” The office has already gone further and faster than anticipated, winning highly competitive private networks which may not have happened if it had not been here. To stimulate even more business, Ieads the group has had their first showing at the ICA EXPO in Atlanta, which was successful. Thanks in part to some hearty co-promotional support from Irish Foods, Aer Lingus and Guinness Imports.
As the pace of international trade accelerates, particularly in the context of the Single European Community, businesses are increasingly relying on telecommunications to secure or enhance competitive advantage. The availability of a high-quality, national telecommunications network is critically important. To ensure that Ireland would be a player and with so much at stake, the state-sponsored telephone company invested more per line than any other OECD nation between 1979 and 1989.
The company continues to invest heavily in business communications, improving its infrastructure and introducing new, competitively priced services. “Our network is one of the most modern in the world,” says Wexford-born Des McLaughlin, the company’s vice president of marketing in the U.S. “Such an advanced network is the result of an ongoing investment program which costs Telecom Ireland in the region of $3.5 billion.” Over the past ten years, by transforming the network into one of the best in Europe, the company has achieved substantial growth in the domestic market, while continually improving service to its customers and containing prices. The major priorities have always been the improvement of customer service and the connection of new customers – both nationally and internationally.
As McLaughlin tells it: “For those readers of Irish America who left Ireland before 1978, the phone service in Ireland today is as different as night and day to what they remember.” He continues, “Gone are the delays waiting to get a new phone installed and you no longer have to waste an inordinate amount of time trying to get an operator. Best of all, you don’t have to put up with crackling or distorted phone connections that once were the norm.”
On the topic of line distortion, the company recently scored high in quality rating during one of the first tests of its kind in Europe. With AT&T Bell Labs, Telecom jointly completed an end-to-end circuit performance test. The results indicated 99.98% error-free seconds (efs) on a private line between Ireland and the United States tested continuously for ten days. This exceeded by a large margin the published objectives of 99.28%. “Do your own test,” says McLaughlin enthusiastically. “Simply call someone in Ireland today and hear for yourself. You can’t beat the quality!”
Some of the new services that the company has recently introduced include Country Direct Services for travellers, in cooperation with AT&T, MCI and Sprint as well as European carriers. Demand for the services has exceeded expectations.
They continue to invest heavily in transatlantic cables to increase the ability to provide diverse, fiber-optic paths to the U.S. and Europe. For example, by 1994, Telecom will have completed a new submarine cable from Ireland to a landing point in the U.K. that will provide an additional direct fiber route to both the U.S. and Europe. What may come as a surprise to many is that this small island is already one of only four European countries with direct fiber access in place to the United States and the country’s International Network is 100 percent digital.
Toll-free service is also available within Ireland using the “1-800′ access code or as it is called in Europe ‘Freefone.’ International toll-free services can be used in many ways: for customer service; for telephone sales; for information or advisory services; for hotel or airline reservations systems; for technical support or simply for order-taking. This service is targeted as one of the next breakthrough areas for Ireland’s economic growth.
During the past decade the global back office, which relies on sophisticated telecommunications, evolved as an important economic source for Ireland’s young workers who process claims and data for a growing number of overseas banks, insurance companies, computer makers, mutual-fund companies and others.
The logical next step is expected to be in the area of telemarketing. With a well-educated and articulate workforce in place, that concept is being heavily promoted by Telecom and IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Authority).
Both organizations, working closely together, have created a services costs structure that makes Ireland the lowest-cost location for inbound international calls (customers calling companies).
In just the last 15 years, telemarketing has developed as the dominant force in cost-effective marketing in the United States.
Revenues from this source are worth upwards of $55 billion annually, yet it has not been developed to the same extent in Europe. That is sure to change when this market of 340 million people joins together. “The coming together of Europe, coupled with lower telecommunications costs and greater use of credit cards, now makes it possible to talk in terms of servicing world markets from Ireland,” says Brian Cogan, IDA project manager for international services.
Foreign languages are an essential ingredient in pan-European Telemarketing and Teleservice operations. Here, too, Ireland has an edge. Every Irish student speaks English and learns at least one other European language. Over 27 percent of Ireland’s population is in full-time education — a higher ratio than in such countries as France, Germany, the U.K. or the U.S. —and a significantly large number go on to a third level of education. With these kind of statistics, the new service is sure to be a success.
By all accounts, Ireland is competing aggressively for business, and for those companies that have gone there, the investment is paying off. The latest U.S. Department of Commerce figures show that U.S. manufacturing companies have achieved on average 24 percent annual rate of return on investment in Ireland — by far the highest in Europe.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the October 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
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