Colm Piercy - Digiweb Group

Year: 2012

Category: Industry

Sector: technology, telecommunications

Digiweb Group is an independent, wholly Irish-owned provider of converged telecoms, managed network, cloud and data centre services to 100,000 business, residential, wholesale and public sector customers.

Established in 1997 by CEO, Colm Piercy, the company was initially focused on the area of web-hosting but in the 15 years since its inception, has developed to become a major, independent telecoms player offering a full service portfolio.

A number of strategic acquisitions have been key to this development.

These have included: the purchase of TalkTalk, Smart Telecom, Internet Ireland and Novara, and has resulted in the successful repatriation of forty previously outsourced jobs from Belgium and UK, creating new employment in Dublin and Dundalk.

Broadband is a key strand of the business and Digiweb continues to deliver market-leading innovations via its Metro network – a wholly-owned wireless network reaching over 50% of the population – that is now offering 30Mbps, and shortly 100Mbps, to business and residential customers.

For over seven years, the firm has been securely connecting over 2,000 primary and secondary schools to the Internet, creating one of the largest private networks in Ireland.

As an infrastructure-rich company, with its own data centre, over 300 km of fibre network and access to over 500,000 phone lines through ‘unbundling’, Digiweb not only has the independence to deliver market-leading, flexible services to customers but its end-to-end quality guarantees, and full-service support enable it to stand apart from the competition.

Currently employing 148 people between its Dublin, Dundalk, and London centres, the company prides itself on its flexible, progressive and fun environment.

It is now seeking ambitious, innovative individuals who value the importance of providing a positive customer service experience to join their existing first class team.

Turnover at the Group stood at €40 million in 2011, with operating profits of €8 million.

According to Piercy, the company injects approximately €8.5 million in wages to the local economy, and a further €7 million in taxes to the national economy.

Digiweb is actively evaluating follow-on acquisitions in Ireland and UK, and is targeting combined organic and acquisitive growth to deliver turnover of €150 million by 2016.

In recent times, Piercy has also established Dataplex, which is developing a number of state-of- the-art wholesale data centre facilities in Dublin, UK and Malta.

Services: Digiweb Group provides a broad range of converged telecoms, managed network, and web-hosting services to 100,000 customers.

These include: Broadband and Data Networks; Cloud, Virtualisation and Managed Services; Data Centre, Web Hosting and Domain Registration; Telephony and Voice over IP services; and Corporate and Enterprise ICT solutions.

Customers: Digiweb services support the mission-critical operations of a long list of residential and corporate clients, international carriers, governments, and reseller partners that include: Boylesports; Ask.com; Boards.ie; Coca-Cola; HSE; Dublin City Council; SAP; Argos; Homebase; Bewley’s; Department of Education and Skills; Eircom; and Rigney Dolphin, amongst many others.

What advice would you give entrepreneurs starting out today? JFDI - follow your passion and just do it!

In these dynamic times real opportunity is out there!

Has your Irish-ness contributed to your success? Definitely.

At home, being a local, Irish-owned business resonates strongly with our clients, while internationally we have found a ready welcome for our friendly manner and the inevitable Irish 'link' usually gets the chat off to a good start!

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