'We have grown in the UK and US due to innovative ideas from the course'

Growth brings its own challenges. To help cope with a fast growth period Philip Martin, founder of technology company Cora Systems, turned to Trinity Business School.

Cora Systems

Martin set up Cora Systems in 1999. The Leitrim based company provides enterprise project and portfolio management solutions and services to government agencies and large-scale global organisations.

Every day, more than €20 billion worth of projects are managed on its platform, supporting hundreds of thousands of users around the globe. As well as its Carrick on Shannon HQ, it has offices in Dublin, Bedford and Boston plus clients in more than 50 countries.

Martin heard about Trinity Business School's executive education programme through his bank. "I heard about it through Bank of Ireland which sent out the marketing collateral to us. The collateral looked interesting and hit on a number of scaling issues we were having at the time," says Martin.

“As a company going through significant growth we are always looking for innovative ways to streamline our delivery process, get better at customer acquisition and ensure growth funding is always in place for expansion into new geographical and vertical markets.”

We have expanded our footprint, grown our client numbers, and increased revenue

Collaboration

It wasn’t just the teaching staff he learned from but the other students on the course, he points out.

“The collaboration with both the college and the other students on the course is a big plus. Quite often companies will have common problems even though they have different products and operate in different verticals. Sharing solutions around those problems is hugely beneficial and saves time.”

As with all executive business programmes, the proof is in the application - what changes or improvements were undertaken on foot of his time at Trinity Business School?

“We consolidated the number of verticals we operate in and streamlined our value presentation to our clients. We have grown in both the UK and US markets as a result of innovative ideas that stemmed from this course – and from the great team we have here in Cora. We have expanded our footprint, grown our client numbers, increased revenue and are now Number One in the Portfolio Program and Project management space in our verticals.”

Trinity Business School’s executive education courses help SMEs avoid the trap of working in their business as opposed to on it.

“In my view it is especially beneficial to companies that find themselves extremely busy with the day-to-day running of their business as it forces you to take time out of the business and think strategically about the things that are important for growing your business.”

Trinity has set about making a world class business school and now ranks in the top two per cent of business schools worldwide. Now amongst the fast growing business schools in Europe, its new facility opens on Thursday, May 23rd.