Thomas Bullman ([email protected]) of www.madinks.ie, winner of the Eircom Spider Award 2014 for Digital Retail Excellence writes on disruption.
In a recent article published on www.bbc.co.uk Sir Richard Branson openly admitted to being a difficult employee. He puts this down to the fact that he is a "disruptive talent", a new breed of employee that is provocative and relentless. Martyn Sakol, managing partner of OE Cam, says that a person with disruptive talent has a multitude of positive attributes that they can bring to a business.
"I would define disruptive talent as individuals who think and act differently, innovate, challenge conventional wisdom, spot trends, see commercial opportunities, and tenaciously find ways to achieve success," he says.
Clearly Sir Richard Branson and Martyn Sakol are fans of disruptive talent, but could it be possible to build an entire industry on disruptive talent?
It may sound like building an industry on "disruptive talent" is a clear recipe for disaster but Ireland has seen this as a clear recipe for success.
At the heart of the success of the fintech industry is the ability of a company to harness the power of the internet to disrupt the financial industry. Cost reduction, enhanced customer experience, technological efficiency for the retail and institutional marketplace are the focus of this disruption. In order for an industry to disrupt it needs to be based on disruptive talent, something Ireland appears to be rich in.
In April, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was quoted in a letter to shareholders, stating, "Silicon Valley is coming ... There are hundreds of startups with a lot of brains and money working on various alternatives to traditional banking." Although this was a warning call across the bow of Wall Street we can see that the same is happening in Ireland. Deloitte recently published a survey stating that Ireland could create 5,000 fintech jobs by 2020. Accelerators such as the FinTech Innovation Lab are actively seeking fintech startups. And where will those jobs be created? Asset management, payments, mobile banking, fx and a host of other areas.In the past month alone we can see job creation at fintech firms such as Numerix, ProSeeder, Pramerica, and Abtran.
As a fintech centre Ireland has plenty of talent, talent necessary to disrupt the financial industry. But more than this Ireland has the right balance of location, cost, language skills, support services such as audit and compliance, and a very strong traditional financial services hub.
As part of a series of articles www.fintechireland.com will look at the best disruptive talent and the best disruptive technology startups in Ireland right now. And follow us on twitter at @fintechireland