I work in a business where we are cost sensitive. We try to do things at a very high level but we are faced by very high costs. We\u2019re not alone in this. There\u2019s a few reasons for this.<\/p>\n
Extremely high levels of indirect and stealth taxation over the last 15 years have driven up salaries to very high levels. On the face of it, we Irish get high salaries on a European level. Foreign investors will peer in and compare us with our international competitors based on salary which is quite fair. Employees were hit with more and more stealth taxes and hikes in costs. Obviously as government hiked costs, employees sought pay rises either directly or via job transfer. That has a double impact for the employer. The salary package costs more but the related employer taxes also increased. Ironically, the employee did not get richer. In fact they have less spending power now than they did 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
The next big cost is down to the distributors. Let\u2019s have a look at a server. I\u2019ve picked a HP DL380 G6 with a 2GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM. The machine in the USA costs \u20ac1,646. That same machine in Ireland costs \u20ac1,900. That\u2019s actually not even a bad example. I\u2019m into photography and some of the equipment I either own or am looking at costs 50% more in Ireland than in the USA. Heck, it\u2019s often cheaper to buy items of any kind in Northern Ireland (UK) than in the Republic. That\u2019s a mere 45 minute drive from Dublin and it\u2019s also why the roads to the North are packed with traffic in the month leading up to Christmas. The reason for this is the distributors. They rip us off and there is no explanation. Retailers can do nothing about it. The distributor cartel forces retailers to buy from a local pricelist and the EU protects this. Yes, you can go abroad to purchase but that also drives up costs unless you are buying in bulk.<\/p>\n
The last one is one that all businesses will probably put as their number 2 cost (behind salaries). Ireland comes in number 2 for electrical costs in all of Europe<\/a>, trailing only Cyprus. That\u2019s for both domestic and industrial power supplies. I work in the hosting business and power is the one thing we keep focusing on when it comes to pricing. It\u2019s a huge cost. I\u2019m often asked why pricing for a service in Ireland is much cheaper in Germany. It\u2019s simple. The 2008 cost for electricity in Ireland was \u20ac.1201\/KWH. In Germany the same cost is \u20ac.0839\/KWH. That makes electricity, a basic ingredient of computing and industry, around 30% more expensive in Ireland. This is where someone not thinking will shout about virtualisation and more efficient computing. Duh! Like our freunde<\/em> over in Germany haven\u2019t already thought of that! Of course they have.<\/p>\n Irish businesses are competing on an uneven playing field that is of our governments making. We can only do so much to reduce our costs and to be creative with our business models and services. In the end, these high costs can make us uncompetitive in an international market. Until the self absorbed fat cats on Kildare Street cop on to this, we\u2019re always going to be fighting a losing battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I work in a business where we are cost sensitive. We try to do things at a very high level but we are faced by very high costs. We\u2019re not alone in this. There\u2019s a few reasons for this. Extremely high levels of indirect and stealth taxation over the last 15 years have driven up … Continue reading “The Big Costs For IT In Ireland”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t