WELCOME NOTE CBI DINNER 2010 - DARREN LEMON

eircom Northern Ireland is very pleased to once again be the lead sponsor of the CBI Annual Dinner. As the voice of business, the CBI has a crucial role to play in ensuring the concerns and issues facing business are heard by Government and key stakeholders here and across the UK. eircom NI applauds the continued efforts of the CBI especially in today’s harsh economic times.

Throughout the last 12 months eircom NI has continued to grow, in spite of the challenging economic conditions. Since last year we have doubled our revenues in Northern Ireland, increased our staff numbers by over 50% and secured more than £20m of new business. Our investment in developing the skills of our staff has been a major factor in the success of our business to date. We were delighted to have this recognised by our key technology partner, Cisco, earlier this month when they presented us with the prestigious Gold Partner of the Year award.

It is essential that businesses exploit emerging technologies in order to compete. We continue to work tirelessly to bring innovative communications solutions to our customers to help them achieve their business goals and objectives. I am pleased to say that earlier this year eircom NI announced a further £1.5m investment into our network infrastructure to support the delivery of cloud based ICT services for businesses across Northern Ireland.

eircom NI continues to work in partnership with the public sector through the £70m Network NI Project. The implementation phase of the project was successfully completed in the autumn, ahead of schedule. This has been a hugely important and influential project which has established a modern and efficient network infrastructure to support and meet the growing business needs of the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS). The project is a great example of what can be achieved through partnership between the public and private sectors. The operational and economic benefits of this project are now being rolled out to other government departments and agencies across the Northern Ireland public sector.

Building on our work with NICS, we will be working with the Chief Executives Forum over the next six months on the Smarter Public Services programme. This is an important initiative, which will explore how public service delivery can evolve to meet the needs of citizens in the future.

It is clear that in order to strengthen our economy, we must challenge the way we work and find new ways to increase our competitiveness. At eircom NI we believe this can be achieved by a collaborative approach. We believe the establishment of mutually beneficial partnerships with our customers, technology providers and business organisations like the CBI has been a major factor in our success to date.

We look forward to working with you and your organisations towards a strong and sustainable economic future for us all.

Darren Lemon
General Manager
eircom Northern Ireland