A Born Entrepreneur?
Summer jobs with businesses led by Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien certainly seem to have planted an entrepreneurial seed in the mindset of Eamon Moore; and the seed didn’t take long to begin to blossom! As soon as he had finished a degree in Computer Applications at DCU in 2002, Eamon established EMIT, an IT consulting and services provider, implementing and maintaining IT systems for all sorts of businesses.
EMIT and its team grew steadily over the following 10 years. Spotting the opportunity for cloud applications, the company quickly built strong capability and a sizeable client base in the area of Microsoft’s cloud and data applications. In 2016, EMIT won Microsoft’s Global Partner of the Year for SMB Cloud Solutions.
By 2018, with multiple potential buyers knocking on the door, Eamon and his Board opted to carve the business in two, selling the IT services side to another company and establishing Hikari Data Solutions to focus on cloud services and BI (Business Intelligence).
A Focus on Business Intelligence, Low-Code & Process Automation
Microsoft’s Power Platform quickly became the central pillar of Hikari’s growth strategy. The platform was designed to help businesses analyse data, build apps and automate processes on a low-code basis (in other words, without the need for deep coding expertise). Today, Hikari helps organisations to solve business challenges with innovation. For businesses seeking simple solutions to complicated problems, Hikari leverages the latest automation and data technology to create low-code, agile solutions that increase efficiencies, reduce costs and streamline operations.
When Eamon and Co-Founder Denise Bray established Hikari, a total of 4 EMIT team members joined Hikari, but the company needed to recruit staff quickly to deliver upon their growth ambitions. Hiring staff with competencies in cloud and BI is an expensive business and this is where support from LEO South Dublin was crucially important to Hikari. The company secured in the region of €45k in funding towards new hires and marketing costs.
Along with the funding came mentoring and, as Eamon now recalls, ‘plenty of tough questions that really challenged us in respect of our proposed offering, who we thought our customers might be; and whether they’d be prepared to pay for the services we had in mind.’
Partnership is Key
Partnership has been a key feature of Hikari’s success to date, not least the early relationship with Microsoft, which has proven to be of huge importance. In 2021, Hikari acquired ProcessUs, headquartered in Dublin but with operations in the Netherlands. All 10 of ProcessUs’ staff moved across to Hikari, strengthening the company’s ability to offer end-to-end data analytics and process engineering solutions.
Not long afterwards, Hikari entered into a strategic partnership with TD SYNNEX, a leading global distributor and solutions aggregator for the Microsoft partner ecosystem. This offers Hikari a pathway to companies who purchase licences access to Microsoft’s Power Platform but don’t have all the necessary skills to fully exploit the product. Those companies can access those skills and expertise through a Center of Excellence delivered by Hikari, in partnership with TD SYNNEX.
The Power of Team
Eamon and Denise are big believers in the power of people and teams, even in a tech-driven business. When they established Hikari, they purposefully built a Board which brings together expertise in technology, business development and compliance/governance. More recently, the firm has hired a new CEO, with Denise as Chief Commercial Officer and Eamon moving to the role of Executive Chairman, focusing notably on the key relationships with Microsoft and TD SYNNEX. Importantly for the Co-Founders, Hikari has adopted an ownership structure that incentivises and rewards all of the senior management team.
The LEO Gave Us a Springboard to Jump From
Now with a team of 30 spread across Ireland, the Netherlands and a number of European countries, Hikari is seeing its turnover double year-on-year. Over 40% of its trade is outside of Ireland, spanning 11 EU countries and the US. With its recent growth and strong international focus, Hikari has become a client of Enterprise Ireland, after a smooth transition facilitated by LEO South Dublin.
But Eamon still sees the supports the firm received from the LEO as having been crucial in the early days: ‘When we spun out the new company, we were like a start-up all over again; and the LEO helped us in so many ways. The funding was vital; our mentor was such a valuable sounding board; marketing supports help us build brand awareness and all the LEO events helped us build a network in our new world.’
For More Info on Hikari see here: https://hikari.ie/