David McRedmond lovingly interviewed in Sunday Times

damien

Interview: Daire O'Brien: Director rings all the right bells

David McRedmond loves a challenge. His job remit — to make Eircom loved again — is proving to be one of his biggest tests so far

“FOR me, it is vital to have a mix of intellectual and practical challenge. I have to have that in any job I do.” Wealthy Irish executives are not usually to be found uttering such lofty sentences, but David McRedmond, as one quickly finds out, is no ordinary executive.

The Eircom commercial director is, even by the cocksure standards of the modern Irish suit, extremely self-confident. As a consequence, he tends to mince his words less abstractly than other media-trained corporate titans who have soundbites and inanities drummed into them.

McRedmond is comfortable looking back at the past couple of years at Eircom where “we downsized the business sharply and did all the things you do when you want to turn around profitability”.

And how. The pig of the 2001 stock market is the darling of Tony O’Reilly’s bank manager, the Eircom ESOT and a handful of executives such as McRedmond, all of whom made more than a few quid from its rebirth as a public company after little more than two years in the hands of venture capitalists.

In the course of the past five years, Eircom has become, arguably, one of the most detested brand names in Irish business, at least among the public.

“Eircom has been both fairly and unfairly criticised,” said McRedmond. “Okay, we were late rolling out broadband and we took some criticism for that, but now we’ve moved much faster on delivering it as a consequence. And we’ve set ourselves targets that will bring us well above the EU average for broadband.” Eircom is using its success in the delivery of the technology — it now has 100,000 customers from virtually nil two years ago — as an opportunity to try and regain its once-vaunted position as one of the good guys in Irish society.

In the lobby of its St Stephen’s Green headquarters — currently festooned with light bulbs marking its broadband achievement — there is a plaque listing the events, organisations and charities that Eircom supports.

It is a list that the national lottery would be proud of and indicates a quiet desperation to be loved.

Eircom’s grand plan to become cuddly again is less about broadband and more about finding a magic formula where maximum profitability, government policy and the public interest all overlap in the magic kingdom of “strategy”.

“Here is a company that has changed,” said McRedmond. “We now have a very clear strategy. We want to move from being a plain old telephone company to a modern digital communications company.”

McRedmond was, he says, “head-hunted” to join Eircom in 2000 after the best part of 15 years working with Waterstone’s and its subsequent owners WH Smith.

His track record at both companies was impressive, indicating an ability to drive revenues through improving the sense of affinity a customer felt towards the retail experience being offered.

At Eircom, McRedmond is in charge of public policy, regulation and communications. These appear to be the subsets in an overall strategy brief that attempts to “deliver something well at the appropriate price”.

Where McRedmond’s “intellectualism” trips him up is in his analysis of the public service element of his brief.

“It’s about understanding other agendas, including the government’s,” he said. “The government has a social agenda — we’re not there to deliver the social agenda.”

However, he says that issues such as broadband means that the company’s interest “happens to align itself with the public interest”.

But surely we have moved beyond the naive stage where we consider the government’s agenda to be indistinguishable from the “public interest”? “That’s part of the intellectual challenge,” he said. “Working out what we can deliver in communications that is in the public interest and to figure out where the government is in all this.”

Of course, Eircom would not bother its barney worrying about the public interest if it were any old private company.

The fact is that the government, the employees and the executives have all gorged their chops on the former semi-state’s carcass.

That it was a combination of public greed and ignorance that led to most people losing money in the aftermath of the company’s initial IPO is forgotten. Eircom has been a marked success for all but the private pocket.

McRedmond has seen direct employee head count at the company fall from almost 11,000 to 7,500 since the IPO with “not one day lost to strike action”.

Yes, but, if you’ve got bloated coffers — and shares to throw around like confetti — surely it’s not hard to keep the militants in the unions quiet? “Partnership in a company like ours is regarded throughout Europe as something of a holy grail,” he said manfully, although he admits there were “certain advantages” to being able to use IPO money for staff buy-offs.

Ultimately, it’s hard not to admire McRedmond’s chutzpah. He obviously fully believes in the golden goodness of Eircom and isn’t afraid to parade his evangelism.

“People’s perceptions are their perceptions,” he said. “The job of the company is to be steadfast, not to be swayed by any other agenda, be it the media’s or the government’s.”

Paddy20

McRedmond is an unloved prize pratt, who hopefully will become the fall guy when the shareholder's, EirCon's employee's, and our Government decide Enough is enough.


P.

viking

Easy there Paddy, no need to call him names.

At least the Sunday Times had someone asking him questions this time instead of handing him a blank piece of paper and allowing him to write his own article...

They're definitely trying to be loved again, cosying up to Meteor, 100,000 BB connections for the great Irish public, please ComReg open up mobile market to allow us to be an MVNO etc...

A lot of people got burnt by the eircom IPO several years ago and when money is involved, people have very long memories. I pity the poor Feet-on-the-Street staff who are at the coalface of the abuse/hatred, maybe if David McRedmond did FOTS selling for a week he would have a real idea of the uphill struggle he faces to make eircom loved again...

Viking

damien

viking wrote:

They're definitely trying to be loved again

So the next Queen song they'll be using in the ads is "Find me somebody to love " ?

eircomtribunal

I'd assume the interview article, showing McRedmond as the good and interesting person, was brought on board the paper with the little financial carrot of the big Eircom ad in the same issue, and probably the promise of more to come, misleading the public about the 500 000 bb connections goal "by 2007" (small text: December 2007), making it sound like this was anything other than the promise to keep Ireland below even the EU average for the next three years.
There was also a "unsatisfactory" (in the sense of not explaining a situation, but fogging it up further) little snippet article by Frank Fitzgibbon (who is not a fan of Eircom) on the last page of the business section.

After musing about the reasons for Eircom's new 500 000 bb connections goal, he writes on:"...Whatever the reason, the decision fairly took the wind out of Forfas's sails ahead of last week's publication of its benchmarking study, which assessed Ireland's competitiveness against 21 countries, with an emphasis on broadband requirements. Its main finding – that there is a deficit of 360 000 connections in the country – is clearly correct and explains why Eircom is gearing up to add 400 000 customers to its customer base over the next three years.
(goes on about the Forfas recommendation to lower LLU costs being "bound to raise the usual head of steam in the firm's boardroom."

Forfas speaks of 360 000 connections missing n o w, and a g a i n this amount being necessary to get to the EU average by end 2007
P.

From the Forfas statement:
Norcontel estimate that compared to the average countries in the group (with 11% broadband take-up), Ireland currently has a broadband deficit of 360,000 connections. In order to catch up by 2007, Ireland needs to install this deficit plus the additional growth other countries are expected to experience during that period, equivalent to another 370,000 lines, bringing the total to over 700,000 connections.

viking

Anyone know what the sales/circulation figures are for the Sunday Times in the Republic?

Viking

Slutmonkey57b

Say what you like about McRedmond, but you can't claim he's a prat. He's very, very very effective at what he's employed to do. The fact that we know what he's employed to do and loathe it doesn't change that fact. To beat him you need to respect him, and the man deserves respect for managing to spout what he spouts and get away with it.

dahamsta

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Say what you like about McRedmond, but you can't claim he's a prat.

You can admire McRedmond all you like for being good at lying, I'll still call him a prat.

adam

jwt

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Say what you like about McRedmond, but you can't claim he's a prat. He's very, very very effective at what he's employed to do. The fact that we know what he's employed to do and loathe it doesn't change that fact. To beat him you need to respect him, and the man deserves respect for managing to spout what he spouts and get away with it.

hear hear

He gets paid a lot of money for doing what he does.

Never underestimate the opposition, he is superb at his job and media spin doctoring. To assume otherwise is a foolish mistake and will cost us dearly.

That said, he is still operating from a weak tactical position and sooner or later has to give way or loose. As long as we remain focused and commited we can ensure that his spin is exposed. Or he'll get another job offer and leave, whichever come first.


John

viking

viking wrote:

Anyone know what the sales/circulation figures are for the Sunday Times in the Republic?

101,524 per issue, as per ABC website

In comparison, the SBP circulates 52,115 per issue.

Makes sense for eircom to target the ST so. I'd say that the financial carrot Peter mentioned played a part in this piece appearing.

Viking