Technology Innovation in Dublin - Wednesday April 29th

Wednesday's itinerary took us on the longest walking portion of the program - to the rehabilitated docklands and the offices of AirBnB, Google and Accenture.

Docklands - with new residential and commercial buildings.

 

AirBnb

AirBnb is in the business of hospitality and guest services. Therefore, their lobby has a pub!

The office environment includes enclosed spaces themed after markets AirBnB operates in.

Employees work in an open office environment.

The AirBnB giraffe, which reminds employees to go above and beyond.

AirBnb has only had operations in Dublin for a couple years, starting with five people working out of an apartment. The company has grown its Dublin presence to a few hundred employees on three floors in their current building. Like Microsoft, it is renewing its investment in Dublin with the building out of a new space in an adjacent building that will allow them to grow their employee headcount.

Trust & Safety is a key component of AirBnb's business. The company goes to great length's to educate its hosts and guests about its policies. AirBnb has a $1million host guarantee that goes a long way in establishing trust between the company and its hosts. Hosts know the company has their back in cases where there is a disastrous/unfortunate situation where property is damaged or stolen - something AirBnB has been in the news a lot about more recently.

Google

We ventured over to Google where they hosted us for lunch in their cafeteria. After lunch we were shown around their building and had a panel of Googlers that spoke about the business and global management.

View from atop of the Google building.

(Dublin's Aviva Stadium can be seen in the distance to the right)

Google Dublin is made up of about 2,780 employees and most of them are not from Ireland. In terms of job function, 70% of the employees are in business operations (sales) while the others are in IT operations and overhead.

We were also treated to a discussion of what it takes to be a global manager and the challenges of managing across cultures. Being a manager of a global company, one must have the awareness of the differences in culture not only within your company, but also of the various cultures where the company operates. We were introduced to the Lewis Model and Cultural Maps, which helps managers understand some of the differences across cultures. This awareness is important because, "the more you are aware of the differences the better off you'll be as a manger and the less conflicts you'll have."

Lastly, it was interesting to hear (from other companies) how Google has purchased much of the land in and around the docklands. Seems like Google is becoming a real estate company too? Makes sense as the docklands area keeps getting developed - land values will keep increasing.

Accenture

In Dublin, Accenture only does "complex work" and not transactional. Additionally, it is all about a skilled workforce and not about labor arbitrage; and Dublin provides the company with a very skilled workforce. For Accenture, they are in Dublin for many of the same reasons other companies are: talent, high density of high profile companies, it is an English speaking country, the time zone is favorable to both the United States and Europe, there is easy access to government officials and there is a low corporate tax rate.