Communicating economic growth
Sales and Marketing Director for eir evo UK, Clair Gheel, discusses the organisation’s evolution from telecoms supplier to a managed service provider and outlines “ambitious growth plans” for the Northern Ireland market.
Housed in its relatively new home of just over 18 months, Gheel believes that eir evo’s location in Northern Ireland is synonymous with the organisation’s recent journey.
Situated on the 10th floor of The Vantage, a newly refurbished Grade A office building on Belfast’s Great Victoria Street, eir evo boasts an office location and layout which is attractive to the talent demands of its current and future employees.
However, of equal importance is eir evo’s office space configuration which enables customer events and customer engagement to underpin what Gheel describes as a “customer-centric ethos” in the delivery of unrivalled end-to-end managed communications and IT services for local businesses.
Although only launched as a brand in 2021, eir evo’s footprint in Northern Ireland stretches back to 2007 when parent company eir – the largest telecommunications company on the island of Ireland – successfully entered the market through the establishment of a government network across the entire Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
At that time, the construction of two custom-built fibre networks specifically for Northern Ireland, also enabled the attraction of enterprise customers. Today, eir evo is now the networking partner of choice for many of Northern Ireland’s top 100 companies. Additionally, eir manages a contact centre and a very large network for all ‘blue light’ services in Northern Ireland, incorporating around 25,000 users and 35,000 endpoints.
Acquisition
In 2018, eir was acquired by NJJ Telecom Europe, which served as a catalyst for the merger between eir business and Evros Technology Group, and the formation of eir evo. Combining telecoms and technology expertise, the partnership offers end-to-end solutions across telecoms and IT services.
“We are supplier agnostic, meaning that we can be fully customer-led on the managed services we are providing, and we can tailor our solutions.”
eir evo UK’s Clair Gheel
The NJJ acquisition also prompted a £10 million upgrade to its regional carrier fibre network across Northern Ireland, including the introduction of new technologies. Total investment in its core fibre network has exceeded £28 million in the past 15 years and Gheel explains that as a result, the organisation is in “significant growth mode”.
Describing eir evo’s offering as “unique” in a local context, Ghell explains: “Building on our established capability which has been present in the Northern Ireland market since 2007, the merger has enabled eir evo to offer an extended portfolio of managed services.”
The Sales and Marketing Director points to the integration of a technology solution stack on top of the existing telecoms network, alongside eir evo’s security practice and business application as akin to a ‘one-stop shop’ that can service the needs of businesses and organisations across Northern Ireland.
“At eir evo, we empower organisations to evolve and transform. We leverage the latest technologies across communications, cloud, cybersecurity, connectivity, and more, so businesses can innovate, evolve, and grow with end-to-end solutions provided by a single partner,” she says.
Relationships
Underpinning eir evo’s market presence is its access to skills and expertise, not only on an all-island basis but across its global business base, meaning that it can lean on global experience, while maintaining a domestic presence for customers.
Gheel explains: “We have a fantastic relationship with our customers here in Northern Ireland, which is exemplified by a very high retention rate. Our customer-centric ethos means that we know our customers personally and when they need to contact us, they can speak with people they have dealt with for a decade or longer, and who are experts in their specific needs. We have established these relationships and built our extended portfolio upon them.
“Having the breadth and depth of a pool of engineers across the island has been really beneficial, and added to that, collaboration with the wider group brings further weight, strength, credibility, and expertise to the table, which is a fantastic asset to have.”
In addition, eir evo is backed by decades of partnerships with the world’s leading technology providers, including premium partner status with the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, HPE, Dell, Citrix, Palo Alto, and Fortinet.
Reliability
As eir evo seeks to build on its public sector, enterprise, and more recently, third sector customer base, Gheel explains that while the solutions being delivered are evolving, eir evo understands that customer expectations are still largely centred on reliability.
“We are supplier agnostic, meaning that we can be fully customer-led on the managed services we are providing, and we can tailor our solutions. Many of the conversations we are having with our customers are around accelerating their digital journeys, building on the reliability of our telecommunications network and services. Ultimately, however, they want accessible, available, and secure solutions that work when they need them.”
Eir evo’s reputation for delivering tailored and reliable solutions is underpinned by its recent success in winning a contract to deliver high-capacity fibre network and managed services to 10 of Northern Ireland’s 11 local councils. The network solution will connect almost 600 council sites across Northern Ireland with the required infrastructure to enable more efficient delivery of digital services, achieve productivity improvements, and support the development of new technology initiatives from within the local authorities.
“We have progressed that conversation among those local councils away from the nuts and bolts in the network to enable a more strategic focus on their digital journey, and the future market trends that are emerging,” Gheel adds.
Cybersecurity
As businesses and organisations progress their digital journey, increased exposure to cyber threat amid increased threat sophistication, is a prominent challenge. Gheel emphasises that cybersecurity is also a challenge in which many customers lack expertise.
In this context, she says that eir evo’s response is two-fold. Firstly, its one-stop shop offering ensures the ability to secure across an organisation’s entire suite through its extensive security portfolio. Secondly, with offices in Belfast, Dublin, and New Zealand, eir evo security experts proactively monitor customer organisations 24/7/365. They are also one of the only technology providers in Ireland to be fully accredited ISO27001 for Information Security Management and ISO20000-1 for IT Service Delivery.
Eir evo’s security support, much like its IT support, operates on a ‘follow the sun’ model, meaning that eir evo seamlessly switches support and monitoring between its Irish and New Zealand offices, giving customers access to support when they need it.
“Using industry leading security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, managed by trained experts using best in class processes and technology, our managed SIEM service mitigates the overwhelming cost and complexity or purchasing, deploying, and effectively managing security monitoring technologies,” explains Gheel.
“Our expert analysts rapidly identify threats and respond to incidents utilising market leading SIEM solutions. Using modern technologies, we analyse data and correlate user behaviour patterns through log events, network flows, threat intelligence, vulnerabilities, and business context.”
Gheel is quick to reiterate, however, that in offering managed solutions, eir evo prides itself on the depth of its customer engagement, ensuring that each customer adopts solutions which best meet their specific needs.
Using another market trend – artificial intelligence (AI) – as an example, she says: “AI has been around for a long time, but in recent years it has attracted a lot of attention. We recognise the transformational potential of AI and have embedded it with our solutions, enabling our customers to navigate the digital landscape very effectively.
“However, in our interactions with businesses in early stages of AI adoption, there is a notable level of uncertainty about how best organisations can integrate it, including challenges around things like security, governance, and data classification.
“Like any tool, the benefit lies in not just having the capability, but in using it. Our extensive cohort of in-house AI experts regularly engages with current and potential future customers to offer advice and help the customer understand how they can best use AI.”
Economy
Alongside growth of their own customer base, Gheel outlines that eir evo recognises and understands its role in contributing to overarching ambitions to grow the local economy. In June 2024, new Economy Minister Conor Murphy MLA launched action plans intended to help grow seven priority sectors. While one of the sectors identified was software, Gheel believes that eir evo’s contribution will go much further.
“We are committed to growing the local economy here, as evidenced by our investment in the network and by the capability we are bringing to the local market. We are in a position to bring ‘best in class’ underpinning technologies to not only the priority sector identified by Minister Murphy, but across every sector of the economy.
“We are keen to be an enabler of business in Northern Ireland and we recognise our role in helping local and indigenous businesses to compete in global markets. Previously, Northern Ireland, as a small geography was regarded as a digital laggard, but that is changing. When it comes to telecoms and IT capability, knowledge, and skills, we are on an equal platform to many on the global stage.”
Gheel also believes customer recognition of the importance of the digital journey to their operations means that telecoms and IT are deviating from the trend of business investment hesitancy experienced in other sectors during times of economic turbulence caused by external headwinds such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and rising inflation.
“I think people are recognising the importance of the digital journey. In the last number of years the market here is embracing and investing in telecoms and IT solutions in a market that is very dynamic.”
However, Gheel is aware that obstacles must be surmounted if eir evo, and the wider telecoms and IT sector, are to continue to thrive in Northern Ireland.
“The growing demand for IT talent in Northern Ireland presents a challenge for companies, we need to further develop and expand the local skill base,” she explains. “Efforts to grow this capacity are not working quickly enough, and must be addressed across the whole spectrum of skills required for such a vast sector.
“In our ambitions for growth, we have vacant roles currently, but we are finding that it is difficult to attract the right skills and the right people locally.”
Alongside increasing the number of skilled telecommunications and IT professionals in Northern Ireland, Gheel is an advocate for greater diversity within the sector, particularly raising awareness of the attractiveness of the sector to more females.
Eir evo is currently exploring entry into the higher-level apprenticeship scheme, and is engaged with Belfast Met to establish tailored programmes to meet its needs. Gheel also says that broader work is ongoing to engage school children on the prospects of a career in telecommunications.
“There is potentially a legacy mindset that exists around telecoms and IT that it attracts a certain type of personality, but that is very dated. It is a very dynamic, social, and exciting career. That is a message we need to get in to schools and into our young people and their parents. The messaging around skills needs to be updated and mindsets need to be changes, which is something we aim to be a part of.”
Summarising her vision for eir evo in the coming years, Gheel says: “In the short term, our goal is to become the most trusted partner of business in Northern Ireland. We will do that by delivering exceptional service and support to our customers, ensuring they have access to the latest technology advances on their digital journey.
“In the medium term, we are committed to enhancing our network, developing our portfolio, and investing in the development of our skills and our IT services, continuing on the path of accreditation to ensure that our engineers remain the best on the island. That will also ensure that we bring those technological advances to our customer base.
“In the long term, we want to play a pivotal role in the economic development of Northern Ireland by providing cutting edge technology solutions to our client base and enabling them to streamline their operations, boost their efficiency, and access global markets, under the guidance of our expertise.”
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Clair Gheel Clair Gheel was appointed the Sales and Marketing Director at eir evo in July 2024, having joined the organisation as business development director in 2017. Graduating with a BSc in computer science from The mother of three describes herself as an avid gym goer, who likes to run for her mental wellbeing, as much as for physical health. |
