Recession is the mother of innovation for award winner
Achieving close to 50% growth this year and projecting a sales increase of 65% in 2013, the company supplies IT and telecom solutions to large companies in the enterprise sector and to SMEs.
This impressive growth spurt has come about following the launch in 2011 of VoiceGrid, an innovative managed telecoms solution, and the release this year of a new range of cloud-based solutions.
Employing nine people, Innovate aims to consolidate growth in the Irish market next year and to double its staff with a view to targeting international growth in 2014. The development of Innovate’s new product range was prompted in 2008 by the arrival of the recession.
Company co-founder and managing director Jim Hughes observed that companies were increasingly hampered by financial restrictions. “The focus was on operational efficiency and we saw that companies were scaling down and cutting costs. We decided to focus on this,’’ he said.
Consequently, Innovate invested in R&D and came up with its managed telecoms solution VoiceGrid.
Mr Hughes says its success is due to both the innovative technology and the business model.
“The solution is supplied on an operating cost basis — customers do not need to invest any capital but instead pay a reduced monthly charge based on current telecoms cost. We provide a state-of-the-art system which reduces their telecom costs by an average of 15%.”
VoiceGrid, the first product to be developed by Innovate, is now being used by a range of customers including Cork-based Simply Dynamics, IT recruiters Stelfox and online insurance company Quote Devils.
“Since the launch at the end of 2011 we have installed 100 new connections. We have also had a couple of high-value projects for cloud-based products”, says Mr Hughes, explaining that the new products include SecureConnect, a managed security product for SMEs, and a managed email security product called RainMail.
Innovate’s new products now account for between 60% and 70% of company sales and this figure is set to grow with the launch of more products in 2013.
Innovate was originally set up as an IT service provider in 2005 at the height of the boom. “The Celtic Tiger was still going strong and there was very little talk of innovation,’’ says Mr Hughes, who saw an opportunity to innovate in this space and, in the long term, to develop products for it.
A business graduate who had been a senior manager in a large IT service provider, Mr Hughes joined with computer graduate Enda Cahill, Innovate’s technical director, in setting up the new company. Innovate started out in a back bedroom of a rented house with just one phone line.
Offering IT and telephone system services, the company took on Glanbia as one of its first customers.
Moving to the Knockmullen Business Park in Gorey in 2006, it achieved slow, steady growth in its early years and opened an office in Dublin in 2008.
It now has customers throughout Ireland with 60% of sales going to clients in the SME sector and the remaining 40% to enterprise customers such as Glanbia, British American Tobacco and Allianz Worldwide.
Recognising the opportunity to develop new products in this space, Innovate invested in R&D in 2010, securing some assistance from Wexford Enterprise Board. Since the launch of VoiceGrid the company has begun doing some work outside Ireland, mainly for Irish companies. Mr Hughes estimates that exports now account for 20% of sales. “In 2012 we have completed projects in Florida, Chicago, San Diego and London,’’ he says.
Although opportunities are opening up for exports, the company will focus its attention on the Irish market in 2013. “We are market leaders here in both cloud computing solutions and managed voice systems and we have a commercially innovative offering. We see huge scope for growth.”
Turnover for this year is expected to reach €1.4m. Mr Hughes believes a sales increase of 65% is achievable in 2013.
Winning the overall title at the National Enterprise Awards has provided a significant boost for the company, which is now working on plans to develop more products for cloud computing and long-term plans for international expansion.
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