Ergo Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Clutch of Awards
In the same month that Ergo celebrates its 20th anniversary, Ireland’s leading IT services company has picked up a clutch of awards, highlighting the scale and diversity of expertise accumulated over the past two decades. John Purdy, co-founder and Chief Executive, commented: “It is a testament to our strategy of staying fresh, relevant and innovative that we are still driving forward and picking up plaudits after two decade in the business.”
The Ergo 2013 Awards:
- Microsoft Country Partner of the Year 2013 – winning one of the Irish IT community’s most prestigious awards for an unprecedented third time in four years, Ergo’s Microsoft practice continues to thrive and lead the way. Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Group commented: “Ergo has delivered exceptional value to our mutual customers and is a shining example of the excellence we see in our best Microsoft partners.”
- Managed Services Company of the Year – a pioneer of IT Managed Services since the nineties, the ICT Excellence Award demonstrates Ergo’s continued leadership in the field of outsource partnership.
- One of Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies 2013, Ergo is recognised for “operating at the highest levels of business performance.”
- Eighth Best Medium-Sized Workplace in Ireland in the 2013 Great Place to Work awards, Ergo is one of the award organiser’s “beacons of hope in what is too often a sea of workplace mediocrity.”
Pictured L to R: John Purdy, Ergo, CEO with Cathriona Hallahan, Managing Director, Microsoft as Ergo Named Microsoft Partner of the Year 2013
Ergo is an indigenous success story that started out as a manufacturing business, making toner cartridges for office printers. By 1998 it had won a Managed Print Service contract with Microsoft, the first in a number of strategic shifts that would define the company. By 2000 it added software development to its skillsets and began to grow a professional services division.
In the next decade it would spin off a separate company, Fenergo, providing software solutions to the global financial services sector, and acquire CDSoft, inheriting skillsets that would have taken years to evolve organically. Most recently Ergo has accelerated its cloud practice, carving out an important role in next-generation ICT service delivery, and developed cutting-edge solutions around BI (Business Intelligence) and collaboration software.
A business model predicated on survival through change has been crucial to the company’s success, according to John Purdy. “A lot of organisations in our industry have gone out of business. To survive, you have to be a little bit paranoid about the need to stay relevant. Our view is that what we do today is not going to be valued in three years’ time – this dictates the kind of people we employ and the amount of money we spend on training. We hire people who want to push through the glass ceiling and look for where the next opportunity is going to be.”
In the 20 years since it was founded, Ergo has grown from three to over 190 employees, with turnover rising from IR £300,000 in 1993 to €24.5m in 2013.
Milestones in a 20-year Success Story
1993 Ergo co-founded by John Purdy as a printer specialist company
1996 Ergo offers document management services and moves to bigger premises
1998 Wins first Managed Print Service contact with Microsoft, a first for Ireland
2000 Ergo expands into professional services and software development
2004 Network Services division is established
2009 International subsidiary Fenergo is established
2010 Ergo acquires CDSoft
2013 Wins Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Award for the 3rd time in 4 years
