Business faces scale of change, says CCI

AS many as 25,000 businesses will not exist in 10 years time unless they become much more competitive, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland warned yesterday.

Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) chief executive John Dunne, speaking at their National Business Forum 2005, said there were 100,000 trading companies in Ireland.

“The top 1,000 of them account for 80% of our exports.

“They are huge drivers of our GNP. They are mainly the multi-nationals.

“The next 3,000 are either smaller multi-national in Ireland or the Irish multi-nationals beginning to move out into international trading.

“So 4,000 companies account for 92% of our exports, 20% of our employment.

“The other 96,000 companies account for what we consider normal commercial activity,” he said.

Mr Dunne said the vast majority of them employ 10 or fewer people.

“That represents 80% of employment in the country.

“One of the ideas we are hoping will come across today is the scale of change we are facing, 25% of them will not exist in a recognisable form in a decade,” he warned.

The CCI boss said they were not trying to say the economy was going to crash and burn.

“We are saying that it needs to be ready to change,” he said.

Mr Dunne said this affects every business in the country.

“What each country needs to be saying is how am I going to have to be different in 10 years time to be successful, to be competitive?

“And that’s what we mean about innovation and strategy,” he said.

Mr Dunne warned one key driver in terms of competitiveness is cost over competition.

“Northern Ireland is rediscovering a sense of confidence.

“It’s coming through some very tough times in terms of exchange rates, however it is lethally competitive, not only because the exchange rates are moving in its favour but, secondly, because we now have a built-in cost disadvantage,” he warned.