Manufacturing & Supply Chain

The week is getting off to a good start with the news that, across the south-east of Ireland, three companies – Eishtec, Bluefin and CipherTechs – are to announce a total of 276 new jobs for the region.

The largest of this morning’s jobs announcements is expected to be coming from customer care company Eishtec, which will announce 200 new roles as part of the opening of a new call centre in Clonmel, County Tipperary.

According to RTÉ, senior officials within the Government and IDA Ireland says that hiring will begin immediately and will spread over the next six months.

This will bring the company’s total workforce to 1,300 people, spread across Eishtec’s other centres in Craigavon, Waterford and Wexford.

Eishtec recently partnered with Carphone Warehouse’s new mobile phone network, iD, to provide their customer service support.

Bluefin

Meanwhile, IDA Ireland has officially stated that the remaining 76 jobs will be created in Bluefin and CipherTechs.

Based in Waterford city, Bluefin’s new technology and operations centre is expected to create 40 jobs for the city over the next three years.

Initially, the US-based secure payments company expects this round of jobs to focus on monitoring Bluefin’s security and payment processing platforms.

This could then be expanded to roles in IT, customer support and sales if the company’s entry into the Irish market proves successful.

As part of this entry into the market, Bluefin will work closely with the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG), located in the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), to leverage their experience and expertise in software and start-ups.

Speaking at the announcement in Waterford today, John M Perry, CEO of Bluefin, said: “The dynamic business environment in the Republic of Ireland made choosing it for our first European location an easy decision.”

CipherTechs

Finally, Kilkenny will be the EMEA headquarters for CipherTechs, an information security company from New York which is to create 36 jobs – senior architects and support engineering analysts – over the course of five years.

As well as being the company’s international headquarters for the EMEA region, Kilkenny will be the location of CipherTechs’ Security Operations Centre (SOC), designed to help their US base in identifying emerging online security threats overnight.

CipherTechs says that Kilkenny has been chosen on the basis of the available skills pool, strong broadband service, proximity to third-level institutions and research facilities, and quality infrastructure.

Speaking at the announcement in Kilkenny today, co-founder and chief business officer, Niccolo Alicandri, said: “I could not be more excited about our investment in Kilkenny. Ever since we started the internal discussions for expansion towards the European Union, Ireland was always a prime target for us.”