Cork’s fast expanding Business Services sector now numbers over 60 companies, ranging from shared services and sales to customer and technical support. They are attracted by Ireland’s largest pool of business graduates, lower salary costs, world-class new office accommodation and a globally renowned local tech cluster.
Over 20 major global players have chosen Cork to base their European or international headquarters, including Apple, VMWare and Aruba Networks. It’s the same story for start-ups like Voxpro, award-winning providers of multilingual customer experiences and technical support solutions. Powering the customer operations of some of the world’s most iconic global brands, their ethos is to attract great partners through talent and creativity. Now with over 3.000 employees, their global HQ is in Cork, where they started!
Multi-national companies like Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Eventbrite have made Cork their base for sales and customer support. Eli Lilly chose the Eastgate Business Park in Cork as the location for their Global Business Centre. The base for their European Shared Services, it employs over 350 people. Other companies such as DELL, Pfizer and VM Ware also have support functions in Cork. Many of our investors have expanded their original operations to include shared services leveraging the ability of the skills pool in Cork for business and finance.
Cork’s vibrant high tech cluster provides the latest in technical support for businesses from global leaders like Apple, Dell EMC, Intel, Johnson Controls, HortonWorks, VMWare and Blizzard.
Cork is home to Apple’s support and service teams, known as AppleCare. They support Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa and provide support to customers via multiple channels including phone, email and chat. AppleCare supports 134 countries, 19 languages, 14 currencies and 12 timezones from Cork.
In addition to the large local pool of top talent, companies can also leverage international talent in Cork. That talent is attracted by clusters of top companies, an attractive lifestyle and opportunities for growth at leading educational facilities. CIT hosts international students from 65 countries.
Apple is proud to have 85 nationalities working at it’s manufacturing and customer service operation in Cork. “AppleCare” which is provided from Apple’s Cork base supports customers in 134 countries.
With more business graduates entering the work stream than anywhere else in Ireland, Cork boasts the second largest business school in the country in the world-renowned Cork University Business School (CUBS). With more than 3,000 enrolled students, it provides a steady stream of top business talent with skills in areas like finance, marketing and business information systems for local and foreign owned companies.
Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) also has a well-established Business School with over 2,800 students and specific expertise in accountancy, marketing and human resources skills. Both CUBS and CIT work closely with employers to provide tailored executive education to strengthen management capability locally.
The one billion euro flagship regeneration of the Cork docklands area will significantly add to Cork’s Grade A office space capacity with several exciting developments taking place on a huge 220 hectare site in the heart of the city. More and more gold standard office accommodation will be coming onstream in the coming months, offering flexible state-of-the-art office space, attractive waterside residential accommodation and key public transport and primary road connections.
A host of workshops, centres of excellence and research facilities continue to drive the sector. University College Cork (UCC), for instance, hosts two industry-led centres focusing on semantic technologies and GRC solutions. UCC, with EMC, also leads the Boole Business Lab a collaborative alliance between industry and academia, focusing on areas ranging from business systems integrity and risk analysis to support compliance.