Alan Hobbs
Head of Global Irish Business, Enterprise Ireland
In a new twist on a highly successful formula, Enterprise Ireland is working with a number of Ireland’s homegrown multinational companies to win new investments for this country.
These companies have been courted by other countries seeking inward investment for many years, and this new initiative sees Ireland actively competing in that space for the first time.
Highlighting Irish-owned multinational companies
“Enterprise Ireland is best known for supporting SMEs as well as the international food and drinks industry,” says Alan Hobbs, head of the organisation’s recently established Global Irish Business Unit. “But we felt there was an opportunity to put our value proposition to Irish-owned and headquartered multinational companies.”
The Global Irish Business Unit is tasked with stimulating investment and deepening Enterprise Ireland’s relationships with these companies. The primary objective is to expand their activity in Ireland and embed them into various aspects of the Irish entrepreneurial and research ecosystems. This includes establishing new connections between those companies and potential Irish suppliers and research partners, as well as winning new investments which might otherwise have gone elsewhere.
Enterprise Ireland is best known
for supporting SMEs as well as the
international food and drinks industry.
Establishing centres of excellence in Ireland
The new unit’s work is already bearing fruit. “We are in active discussions with five or six companies about establishing centres of excellence to serve their global operations in areas like digitalisation, research and development, HR, finance and sustainability,” Hobbs points out. “These are mobile investments that could go anywhere in the world but could provide significant numbers of jobs here.”
A novel feature of the initiative is an investment mission in Ireland later in the year, led by the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke. “We regularly conduct overseas trade and investment missions in conjunction with IDA Ireland to communicate how great Ireland is for investment. We are now going to do the same thing with our homegrown multinationals and make the pitch for Ireland to their senior leaders right here in Ireland.
According to Hobbs, the overall approach is much the same as that taken by IDA Ireland in relation to FDI. “Very often, it’s the simplest and most obvious things that are the most successful,” he concludes.
