Autodesk's steady growth in line with Irish construction recovery
Amanda Fennell, head of EMEA marketing for Autodesk Construction Solutions (ACS), with Autodesk, a company specialising in computer-aided design software for the manufacturing, construction and media and entertainment industries.
Design technology company Autodesk is steadily expanding, enjoying solid growth in tandem with the recovery within construction and the other sectors its services.
A global tech multinational specialising in computer-aided design software for the manufacturing, construction and media and entertainment industries.
Autodesk established a presence on Dublin’s historic Windmill Lane in early 2018. Its software has recently been used to design of the Brewery Quarter student dormitory in Cork and has also been used in of Ireland’s most iconic buildings including the Guinness Storehouse, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Samuel Beckett Bridge, and even the Dublin Spire.
Autodesk’s software is also used in the development of high-performance cars, iconic skyscrapers, smartphones and some of the most popular box office movies.
While Autodesk has had to face all the Covid-related challenges as every other company, its steady growth is also encouraging for others.
Amanda Fennell is Autodesk's head of EMEA marketing for Autodesk Construction Solutions (ACS). Amanda has been working in this role in the UK for a year and a half now - having previously worked with PlanGrid, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2018.
She has over 20 years of marketing experience predominantly within IT companies in Ireland and the UK. Amanda has just moved back to Dublin from the UK where she has lived/worked for over 16 years.
Her relocation to Ireland is in line with plans to establish Autodesk's marketing team as part of the growing ACS hub in its Dublin based EMEA headquarters. She has very much arrived into “the new normal” work environment.
Amanda said: “I jumped at the opportunity to move home to Dublin. The company has a great energy, even with people working remotely.
“Since I have joined the team in Dublin, we've done a lot of weekly team meetings on Zoom, and meetings across the EMEA team with 70 or 80 people on the call.
“We have also hosted fun events, like a virtual escape room and quarterly meetings with a guest speaker and we have hosted quizzes. We also have a newsletter.
“Face-to-face meetings with our customers are not happening, so we do a virtual lunch. We send out a lunch voucher. We're doing everything we can to make the virtual workplace as real as we can make it.”
Amanda says there is a degree of Zoom fatigue in the workplace, but people are making it work. For Autodesk's 200 or so Dublin staff, it helps that they enjoyed working in their vibrant Windmill Lane office.
Prior to Covid, the company hosted family events, theatre nights, events celebrating the diversity of the workforce.
While Autodesk serves a global customer base, it's hard to be cheerful if your neighbours are glum. The upbeat humour at Autodesk Ireland is helped, of course, by the general recovery within the Irish construction industry.
Ulster Bank's latest Construction Purchasing Managers' Index posted a reading of 48.6 in October, up from 47 in September. Purchasing activity also saw its first increase since July and Ulster Bank said the rate of expansion was the fastest since May 2019.
Construction will continue to face continuing challenges in returning to sites, with ongoing Covid testing and related HR challenges. The sector has been very measured and thorough in adressing the pandemic.
The Construction Industry Federation says 220,000 people had undergone the CIF's Covid-19 induction programme, while the Standard Operating Procedure had been downloaded over 20,000 times.
The CIF said that since the sector had reopened in May, there had been fewer than 40 cases of Covid-19 across Ireland's 1100 substantial construction sites employing 147,000 employees - meaning that in 99.99% of situations, Covid-19 had been kept off sites.
Autodesk has been helping its customers with sourcing contract workers globally though its BuildingConnected service, the largest digital network of construction professionals to Ireland and the UK.
BuildingConnected launched in Ireland in October. The technology helps manage relationship to ensure the right teams are in place, at the right time for every kind of construction project.
Amanda said: “With more than one million contractors on the BuildingConnected network in North America alone, and over 3,000 main contractors, sub-contractors and clients actively tendering for projects, BuildingConnected’s network effectively replaces the word-of-mouth approach that is commonly used throughout the construction industry.”
The HR challenges facing the construction industry generally are not unlike the challenges Amanda has face in managing a team in a virtual world. People have been adapting to at an accelerated pace as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For Amanda, this challenge was also coupled with delivering additional virtual campaigns to support a growing sales team across EMEA while also building her own team. This included recruiting new colleagues with the support of Zoom and engagement from the wider marketing team to help bring them on board.
Amanda has successfully managed her new team in a remote working environment and the tools she used to facilitate communications, recruit and “meet” new members of the team, efficiently collaborate on projects and also maintain employee motivation and morale.
“With the pandemic affecting communities, families, and people around the world, this has been a difficult time for all of us,” said Amanda. “Autodesk’s priority has remained the health and wellbeing of employees, customers, and partners.”
