How does digital acceleration enable you to punch above your weight?

As they say, the luck of the Irish is about doing the right thing, in the right place, and at the right time. Just think about Riverdance, the seven-minute interval act of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, that became a global sensation overnight.

Michael Flatly, Jean Butler and the Riverdance might never have burst onto the world stage without Eurovision – but gaining, grabbing, and making the most of the opportunity to flawlessly perform in front of 300 million viewers was the result of nothing else other than hard work, resilience, and willpower. This little story is a reminder to not forget that we actually earn our own luck, it’s a combination of work, tireless effort, and all of the attempts that were previously made.

 Today small businesses have the force of tech behind them, meaning they don’t need to dream small anymore... In today’s digital world, we often see small, lean businesses achieve widespread exposure and appear much larger than they really are. Instagram infamously had just 13 employees when Facebook acquired it for $1billion. Competing alongside long-established, high-volume, and high-staffed operations is not impossible for small market players anymore.

 There is no Eurovision for businesses, but digital acceleration has enabled all of us to open the global markets and punch above our weight. Luck is what you make it, therefore, to stay ahead of the curve and futureproof your business, we encourage all companies to grasp the opportunities that are offered to them by digitalisation – among others – to extend their reach, foster innovation and agility while mitigating risks, boost competitiveness, increase speed to market, improve their customer experience, and last but not least, enter global markets.

 Digital acceleration presents new opportunities for businesses to expand and succeed in global markets. In digital, you can grow your presence, prominence, and engagement without the cost of setting up and maintaining physical exposure. What’s more it opens opportunities in terms of accessibility of resources, skills, competence acquisition, as well as learning and knowledge-development opportunities in foreign markets.

 From the point of view of Irish companies, it gives us the ability to expand beyond our reach. If you think about it, the Irish are well known for this. Today there are about 70 million people around the world who claim Irish heritage or ancestry – quite a number for an island of only 5 million. The Irish market is a small market, but digitisation is helping Irish companies to access global markets. There are fascinating examples of that, including 5 Irish unicorn start-ups, who are worth more than $1 billion each. But there are others, going way back to the beginning of e-commerce, there’s, Kenny's bookshop, established in Galway in 1940, it was one of the first Irish businesses embracing the retail e-commerce opportunity and managed to extend its reach globally – shipping books worldwide to over 120 countries annually – from just one small shop. Or Micksgarage.com started when the founder was unemployed and is now a force in the global auto parts industry, delivering products to over 70 countries worldwide.

 Markedly, digital acceleration is key to avoiding being left behind, as well as the fact it opens doors for businesses of all sizes to exceed their limitations. The most important thing is to not be afraid to take the first step. Don’t be afraid to fail and learn from that, and to move on and become better and better. It’s the time to think big. There are many companies with exceptional services or products, but they have never thought they could achieve global status, so they never tried and never succeeded. It’s time to be brave enough to think big and punch above your weight.