The third entrant to the €70m Irish directory enquiries market 11890 Ltd is planning to create 80 jobs over the next 18 months at a third call centre.
The company plans on capturing 10pc of its target market. It is also in the process of creating a web directory using proprietary technology.
The company, which already employs 70 people, was launched in July last year and so far has succeeded in capturing 3pc of the total market at the end of 2006, according to Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) estimates.
The company has one call centre at its north Dublin headquarters in Clonshaugh and a second in Galway.
The company competes actively against Conduit’s 11850 service and Eircom’s 11811 service.
As part of its assault on the directory enquiries market, the company will be offering a free directory enquiry service for all Eircom landlines for the month of February.
The company said it has achieved its 3pc stake through lower costs, stating that its prices range between 26pc and 36pc cheaper than 11850 and 11811, and a business-to-business service that is used by blue-chip clients like AIB, An Post, Elan, KPMG and Goodbodys.
To expand on this, the company is currently understood to be finalising a new premier business listing service, which will be complemented by the publication of a business listings directory in April.
11890 Ltd’s managing director Nicola Byrne told siliconrepublic.com that the company is currently examining a number of alternative locations in Cork and Limerick for a third call centre.
She said she was confident of denting the existing market. “We are aiming to make 11890 a priority number in people’s minds. We are very definitely in the process of creating a brand people will associate with.”
Byrne said that the company is in the process of developing a business listings directory for the web. “We are hoping to create a formidable web presence but unfortunately directory databases are never clean in terms of accurate, uniformed standards of information.
“When we do publish the directory on the web everything that goes up will be accurate. We have been working for the last year or so to get that element right.”
Byrne said that 11890 Ltd is working with a UK software firm called Montague Technology on the database. “As a rule everything we build is proprietary. We take ownership and write everything from scratch.”
By John Kennedy
