Ireland – uniquely poised for digital leadership


There’s an old expression “cobblers children have no shoes”,  I wondered how appropriate this is in relation to the Irish market and in particular the “digital” revolution that now permeates almost every aspect of modern life.

Ireland, the darling and one of the leading success stories of the EU to date.

Ireland, country of saints and scholars but now a safe European home for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ebay, Amazon, Intel, HP and many other stakeholders in the digital landscape.

Ireland, a nation that once spawned builders and poets, now exports property developers and...in a relatively short period of time has become the number one source for the world’s software requirements. 

Ireland has been justifiably selective in its investments. The focus has been on attracting inward investment and facilitating the growth of internationally traded services such as digital media.

The loser (or cobblers child) in all this rush has been the average Irish citizen who still struggles to find online access at a rate comparable with other European markets.

That’s why we rank alongside Malta and behind Slovenia, Portugal and Estonia when it comes to broadband access.  To put it in perspective (as of June 2007) 34% of the Dutch have broadband access compared to 23% in the UK and just 15.4% in Ireland – clearly if we are to continue to enrich the rest of the planet with literature, poetry, music, storytelling and art we better get our heads around the tools of choice for future generations – Ireland continues to lead but is prising the “connected” and the “disconnected” further apart.

Ireland – affluence shock

Yippee (or should I say Yahoo) a new report from Danish owned National Irish Bank states our total household wealth has now passed the €1 trillion mark. That’s €647,000 for the average Irish family largely accrued through the dramatic increases in property values here in the last ten years. In Ireland there are now more Mercedes cars per capital than in Germany, the Irish have bought more private jets than any other European country since 2003 and 60% of farms bought in the Dublin area in 2006 were described as lifestyle purchases. (more luxury apartments??)

Ireland – opportunities for M&A

Results International Group opened their Dublin office in December. Led by digital media veteran, Damian Ryan, the company has already been appointed to manage several assignments spanning the traditional media sector, digital media and marcomms. So where do we see the opportunities?

  • Agencies gearing up for digital – following a 65% increase in online spend in the last year agencies now embrace digital and are well positioned to manage online media, search and other related requirements on behalf of clientele. However clients are more likely to appoint agencies who can demonstrate substantial investment and expertise in this area – for some acquisition is a more cost efficient option than recruitment.

  • Media facing consolidation – we believe the next tier of consolidation is already underway in the Irish market. Over the last few years it has been regional press and local radio –most notably  the Communicorp acquisition of Emap’s radio business portfolio here for €200m and the resulting disposal of FM104 to UTV for €52m. Now we expect to see further consolidation in this space including periodicals, websites, and related businesses such as events, design and market research. The media and publishing sector represented the single largest source of M&A activity in 2007 largely due to EMPG ‘s(formerly Riverdeep) €2.9bn acquisition of Harcourt Education from Reed Elsevier.

  • International Growth – it is Ireland’s new digital businesses in mobile, online, animation, games and suchlike which will undoubtedly present some of the greatest opportunities in the years ahead. Organisations such as Havok, Zamano and EMPG will continue to drive activity underlining Ireland’s pivotal position in the digital landscape.