Enterprise Solutions targets the UK with its people-first business model

Enterprise Solutions may have begun as a small company selling laptops from a basement in Temple Bar, but the consulting firm now has some of Ireland’s largest companies as clients and is starting to advance into the UK.

The firm was founded by Derek Cullen in 1997 selling laptops and servers. In 2002, he brought in his wife, Denise Cullen, as a HR director and two years later the couple identified an opportunity for the company to grow into a technology consultancy service.

Now Enterprise Solutions specialises in Citrix, a cloud computing technology platform. Company consultants meet with businesses to discuss challenges and identify technology solutions.

“A lot of the work we do is to enable people to work remotely,” said Denise Cullen, who is now chief executive of the firm. “Even before Covid most of our customers would have been using a hybrid model. So when the pandemic happened they were able to just pick up their laptops and work from home.”

The firm has high-profile clients such as Irish Continental Group, the owner of Irish ferries, and AIB. It also designed and implemented an award-winning system for Aer Lingus. Consultants identified old-fashioned practices, including a requirement for pilots to bring in heavy and unwieldy paper-based operating manuals into cockpits, which could be modernised.

Citrix made changes recently, which “opened up more opportunities for consultancy services,” according to Cullen.

Given that it is an expensive technology there were limited opportunities for future growth in Ireland so the company “faced a crossroads” in how to expand the business.

“We decided that we could really expand into the UK,” she said. “That’s where Enterprise Ireland came in, they did a feasibility study with us and showed us the different areas we can go into and how to approach it.”

The consultants have only been in the UK market for six months but have already managed to win some clients. Cullen stressed the growth would be steady rather than dramatic and she is hopeful for 10 new customers by the end of 2024.

“We are chipping away at it,” she added.

People-first

Enterprise Solutions competes with some large technology consultancy companies, but it manages to punch above its weight thanks to its in-house team.

“Ten years ago we were highlighting what our key differentiators were,” said the chief executive. “We were asking, ‘Why do the customers come back? What is making us stand out in the Irish market more than anybody else?’ And we found that was our team.”

Derek Cullen is very much “customer first” in his approach, according to his wife.

She identified a need for some additional internal leadership and attended a women-in-leadership workshop, which she described as “game-changing”.

“We started to hire a little bit differently,” she said. “We decided to really emphasise our core values as a business. When we interview people we hire on the back of our core values, and we drive the business and the behaviours within Enterprise Solutions on those values.”

The values of customer commitment, accountability, integrity, respect and diligence continue to drive decision-making at the firm and is playing into their growth plans.

Cullen said she planning to “cautiously grow” the team by adding 12 more people, but stressed the business needed to ensure people were the right fit.

“The team is everything,” she said. “Enterprise Solutions is its people.”

– This Making it Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland