ICL, the information technology services company, plans to employ 2,000 people in Ireland within the next three years, almost doubling the 900-strong workforce currently based in its Dublin and Belfast offices.
The company is expected to open a Microsoft-accredited software development centre in Belfast in the autumn, making ICL the largest Irish-accredited training centre for software developers using Microsoft technology. The company has started advertising for the first 250 employees, even though a site still has to be identified. It is expected to recruit nearly double this figure as long as skills are available locally.
According to Dr Barry Hagan, business development and marketing manager of ICL, an important feature of the new Belfast facility will be its expansion potential. It will be the last of seven dedicated technical centres worldwide which ICL has established to operate on Microsoft's software platforms. ICL is currently building another large facility in Dundalk, to accommodate 120 Oracle software development specialists within two years. Both operations will function separately as they are based on different software platforms, and will cater for different markets.
As part of a global restructuring programme, ICL is slimming down its services and seeking to capture a large portion of the growing IT outsourcing market.
It has recently become involved in public/private partnership (PPP) initiatives, with considerable success in Britain, where it has taken on a number of government projects. These include a training and employment project valued at around £30 million sterling (€44.95 million) over 10 years, and Classroom 2000, an IT in education partnership project, and a customs and excise IT contract.
The company is 90 per cent owned by Japan's Fujitsu and reported a turnover of £2.5 billion (€3.17 billion) in 1998 and profits of £70 million. It has said it plans a partial stock market flotation in 2000. This is expected to increase its cash reserves, and fund further PPP initiatives.
According to Dr Hagan, the introduction of the euro, and the pending Y2K bug problem, are making it costly for companies to afford specialised IT staff. In many cases they are forced to pay IT personnel more than employees from other sections. Dr Hagan says this is giving rise to workplace jealousies, and discontent in some quarters that too much time is being devoted to non-core activities.
ICL and other services companies are increasingly taking on the IT activities for these organisations on a long-term contract basis.
