BrazilInternational consultancy Ayming opens office in Ireland
International business performance consultancy Ayming has expanded its global footprint into Ireland. The firm has opened for business in the Republic in order to better support businesses seeking to innovate and digitise, as Ireland’s economy braces for aftershocks from Brexit as neighbouring UK leaves the EU.
Ayming is a French-origin consulting firm, born out of a merger between Alma Consulting Group, and Lowendalmasaï in 2015. At the time of the merger, Alma Consulting Group had around 1,300 advisors in 9 countries, while the smaller Lowendalmasaï employed a team of 360 staff in 9 countries. The merger was in terms of regional presence complementary, the majority of office footprints overlapped, with locations in Japan and China the exceptions. Despite the differences in company size, the CEOs of both firms – Hervé Amar and Pierre Lasry – stressed that the deal was considered a ‘merger of equals’ across the ranks of both firms – and the firm rebranded as a whole to reflect this, taking neither of the previous names and instead becoming Ayming.
With a global headcount of over 1,400, Ayming has since maintained a presence in 16 countries; Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, the UK, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and USA. In 2017, the firm achieved a total turnover of €157 million, and as Ayming looks to build on that momentum, it has focused increasingly on the research and development (R&D) scene in Western Europe. The latest development in this is the firm’s launch in Ireland, where the consultancy hopes to help local businesses to tap into the nation’s favourable tax credit system.
The Irish economy is primarily driven by pharmaceuticals, technology and machinery – all of which depend upon R&D infrastructure to thrive – and reflecting that, at 37.5%, Ireland has one of the most generous R&D tax credit systems in Europe. However, while the scheme is one of the most lucrative in Europe, the latest estimates from Eurostat rank Ireland 18th out of the EU28 for gross domestic expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP, at just 1.18%, something the Irish Government has outlined plans to expand to 3% of GDP.
Ayming’s arrival in Dublin marks a key moment for Ireland’s R&D ambitions then, as the launch of consulting firms of its kind in the Republic will encourage businesses of all sizes to apply for tax relief, as well as empowering them with the know-how to do so. The planned R&D expenditure is intended to boost the stature of the Irish economy, which was predicted by Big Four firm PwC to become the fastest growing Eurozone nation between 2018 and 2024. At present the Irish economy is booming, with 7.8% growth in 2017 – three times greater than most of the Eurozone.
Ayming’s move into Ireland is to be supported by The British and Irish Trade Alliance (BITA) – a non-profit organisation aimed at fostering business relationships between the two nations – which has granted Ayming a platinum partnership to encourage the expansion of the consultancy’s R&D insight into Ireland. The firm’s 17th global office in Dublin will be headed up by Martin Hook, the current Managing Director in the UK, supported by Orla O’Leary, Ayming’s expert in the region.
Speaking on the opportunity for Ayming and for Irish businesses, Hook said, “We have had tremendous success working with UK businesses, and are proud to have helped many clients realise six-fold increases in the size of their claims. We’re now incredibly excited to emulate these achievements for our Irish clients… The target is almost double that, and we believe we can close that gap. As well as this, Ireland shot up three places in Bloomberg’s annual innovation index, which takes into account factors like researcher concentration and patent activity as well as R&D activity.”
