From left: HCS head of telecom solutions Mick Foley and head of operations Sean Hegarty. Image: David Murphy
HCS said it is launching the new venture due to a surge in demand, driven by the rise in hybrid working and the phasing out of copper wires in favour of fibre.
Waterford-based HCS is investing €1.1m to launch a dedicated telecoms business to deal with increased customer demand.
The company said this new arm – HCS Telecom – will focus on helping businesses shift from legacy phone systems to cloud-based unified communications. The company expects this new venture to achieve revenues of €1.3m in 2024 and to employ eight people by the end of the year.
HCS said the decision to expand its telecom services is due to a surge in demand as a result of hybrid and remote working, along with the the phasing out of traditional copper wires in favour of fibre.
The new venture follows HCS’s acquisition of business telephone supplier Fixaphone in 2023, which it bought to boost its telecoms turnover. The deal added 750 Fixaphone customers to the HCS portfolio – an increase of 125pc at the time.
The new division will be spearheaded by Mick Foley, HCS’s current head of telecom solutions. Foley said that legacy phone systems are “static” and don’t provide flexibility in “an increasingly decentralised workplace”.
“With this new division, we aim to address this challenge and enable more organisations to work from anywhere, safe in the knowledge that they are supported by a range of reliable and secure solutions,” Foley said.
“We have deep expertise in IT and telecoms, and we are leveraging our experience and skillsets to cement our offering for customers. HCS Telecom is a modern solution to a modern challenge and we look forward to helping our clients to continue to grow in an ever-evolving business landscape”
In 2022, the Waterford-headquartered company announced plans to invest a total of €3.2m in growing its business. It also shared plans to double its workforce over the same period.
HCS also invested €1.13m in 2022 to boost its cybersecurity offering, while enabling the expansion of its services in high-growth areas such as manufacturing, utilities and cloud security.
As well as its Waterford base, HCS has offices in Dublin and Cork. Last year, CEO Neil Phelan spoke to SiliconRepublic.com about the key sector opportunities for the company.
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