SCi, an independent, UK based sales outsourcing company is delivering significant results for new entrants to the UK market looking to establish a presence. One of these new entrants is Irish telecoms company eircom, the principal provider of fixed-line telecommunications services in Ireland. It has been outsourcing an element of its sales process to SCi in the UK since February 2006 and has to date seen significant results in the growth of its business in the region, including a pipeline of €1m.

eircom was looking to establish a brand foothold, sales pipeline and revenue stream from the UK market, initially from those clients with data transmission services back to Ireland. It looked to SCi to provide a flexible, highly skilled sales function that could give it fast access to the UK market. To date SCi has worked a total of 65 days for eircom, made in excess of 5,000 company touches and created a total of 94 potential opportunities leading to significant progress into eircom’s re-entry to the UK market.

Justin Dobson, UK Head of Sales eircom UK Ltd, said “I very much see SCi as an extension of my sales team and their drive into the market, the activity, support systems, experience and professionalism are all impressive. During the project we have doubled our opportunity pipeline and accelerated our market position beyond expectation.”

A relatively new addition to BPO (business process outsourcing), sales outsourcing is gaining in popularity in the UK, after becoming prevalent in the US market. The BPO market as a whole is expected to reach £70bn this year, an increase of 8.3 per cent on 2005(Source Gartner). Organisations of all sizes that are looking to establish fast and scaleable access to markets from other geographical locations are finding the sales outsourcing solution an extremely cost effective alternative to employing sales teams in other regions.

Costs of employing staff can be substantially reduced by the implementation of handpicked sales teams who are resourced from a pool of highly experienced and qualified individuals. Strict Service Level Agreements are adhered to, and detailed reporting takes place on a daily basis, offering varying levels of details from number of calls made to number of meetings set up. SCi works with eircom to continually assess current tactical plans and revise approach as required.

Brendan O’Flaherty, CEO of SCi Sales said, “As a well established player in the Irish market, we knew eircom had a solid proposition to bring to the UK market. We’ve supplied them with a cost effective way of entering the UK market with a sales team that were experienced and understood their business. We have the ability to scale up and down the resource as and when required and offer eircom access to our database of over 350,000 contacts.”

About SCi Sales
Based in the City of London, UK, the SCi Group was established in 2002 as an independent sales outsourcing company. It provides organisations with competitive sales and business development solutions creating tactical business development plans and implementing highly skilled and qualified sales teams for its clients. SCi works with small companies in growth mode, large companies looking to augment their existing sales force or global businesses looking for new market penetration. It has a track record of increasing it’s clients revenues and margins. Key customers include Cable & Wireless, BT, Utilyx, Optima Diagnostics, Genesys and eircom. Further information can be found at www.scisales.co.uk.

About eircom
eircom is the leading provider of telecommunications services in Ireland. The company has over 1.1 million customers and provides a comprehensive range of advanced voice, data and internet services to the residential, business and enterprise markets. eircom also owns Meteor Mobile, Ireland’s third largest mobile phone company. The company which was formerly listed on the Dublin and London stock exchanges, was purchased by Australian firm Babcock & Brown Capital Ltd (ASX:BCM) together with the eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) in August 2006. With over 7,000 employees eircom is one of Ireland’s largest employers.