Centre of excellence plan for Cork company of the year

EMC is a big deal for Cork.

It’s one of the country’s biggest employers and has always got on with doing business quietly. Until now.

The company, which employs 1,600 people in Cork was recently awarded the Cork company of the year at the annual Cork Chamber dinner.

“It’s only when I was going home in the taxi after the event that I realised the enormity of the event,” said president and managing director of EMC Ireland Bob Savage, who picked up the award on behalf of the company.

EMC head honchos in Boston were quick to recognise the value of the award, sending senior staff in Cork congratulatory emails and spreading the word that Cork is doing well.

“The brand of EMC has notched up as a result of this award,” said Mr Savage.

And it’s this brand that EMC want people to know more about. For years it has kept under the radar but Mr Savage admits that the world is now a different place and EMC might need to get out there a bit more.

“We weren’t serving markets here and we had no issues with hiring staff so there was no need to promote ourselves,” he said.

The company wants to spread the word that it is aware of its corporate responsibility within the community, that it’s conscious of green issues, that it’s still hiring and that it’s a great place to work.

It is also progressing with plans to establish itself as a centre of excellence which, explained by Mr Savage, involves connecting EMC’s 24 business units in Cork so that they work together towards common goals.

They will develop across five mission areas such as manufacturing, supply chain, solutions and services and process development.

This might sound like a list of business jargon but according to Mr Savage, becoming a centre of excellence means EMC in Cork will “switch up a gear or two”.

“There’s a real opportunity now to connect people. If you have people from different groups coming together, sharing ideas, getting to know one another, that’s going to be great for the corporation. The key thing about the centre of excellence is people to come together and add value,” he said.

Employees in Cork have no need to worry that the company, which was once described by Ballincollig county councillor Derry Canty as the greatest thing to ever happen to Ballincollig and Ovens, is going anywhere.