Account director Colin Hamill is looking towards a bright future for telecommunications

What do you believe has been the company’s biggest success to date?

There has been a lot to celebrate since we established eircom Northern Ireland four years ago. The company has grown rapidly and now employs 39 staff in our Belfast office.

The biggest success was being awarded the Network NI project by the Northern Ireland Civil Service in September 2007.

The Network NI service provides a leading edge telecommunications infrastructure for over 20,000 civil servants in Northern Ireland and is a key building block in the shared services strategy across government departments.

The service was implemented three months ahead of schedule and has enabled Northern Ireland Civil Service to achieve a 50% reduction in telecommunications costs.

The service was recently recognised in the Agenda NI ICT Innovation Awards as best large scale ICT transformation project in public sector.

Have you managed to maintain growth in the current economic climate. If so, how?

We have continued to grow the business in Northern Ireland through an unrelenting focus on high quality customer service and an ethos of working in true partnership with our clients.

We, as a company, pride ourselves on being easy to do business with and designing communications solutions that meet the individual needs of each of our clients and add value to their business.

Do you have any big projects in the pipeline?

Our business was created to deliver large and complex projects. For example, at the moment we are implementing Ireland's largest internet protocol (IP) telephony project for one client, and have just completed a major next generation contact centre project for another. As for our pipeline, we are currently bidding for some exciting projects in the public sector, which will see the culmination of a great deal of hard work come to fruition if/when we win them.

Unfortunately, I can't say what they are for now, but watch this space ...

What are the long-term hopes for the company?

We will aim to continue to provide advanced ICT services to the public and private sectors and also to do our part to make Northern Ireland an excellent place to invest as well as do business.

How will the telecommunications sector fare in the coming years?

In the past the telecommunications sector has traditionally been a slow moving market.

In recent years the sector has seen a rapid rate of change with the growth in mobile computing, internet-based services and now with the move towards cloud computing.

The ability of telecommunications companies to continually bring to market new innovative services that are relevant to the needs of an IT-literate generation will be strongly tested.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received throughout your career?

Quite simply that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason and that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Company Profile

Name: eircom Northern Ireland

Location: Belfast

Sector: Information communication technology (ICT)

Founded: 2007

Workforce: 39

Personal CV

Name: Colin Hamill

Position: Account director, public sector