8th June 2017
Smartbox Group, the European leader in the experience gift market, today announced that it will create 100 new jobs as part of its future growth plans for its Dublin office, which is based off Talbot Street, Dublin 1. This project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland.
The new roles at the Dublin site will focus on a number of key areas including R&D, customer experience, sales, marketing, finance and supply chain. Smartbox Group has added a further 2,000 square feet of office space to its current footprint to accommodate its growing headcount.
Smartbox Group are undertaking a significant R&D project in Dublin and the focus of this project is to create a state of the art information system in Dublin which will allow Smartbox Group to offer its customers a frictionless end to end exceptional customer experience reinforcing Smartbox Group as the gift experience company of choice for consumers.
As a result of this project, the Dublin site will significantly enhance its technology team and is actively recruiting skilled candidates including: systems engineers, front and back end developers, BI and Data analysts, salesforce and DevOps engineers. Given the success of the Dublin site to date, Smartbox Group envisages the creation of further roles across all other areas of the company including customer service, partner management (sales), marketing (content writers and desktop publishers), finance, supply chain and digital bringing total employee numbers to over 500 by the end 2017.
Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor said: "As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation I warmly welcome this expansion by Smartbox. This is a great success story with a further 100 jobs being announced for Dublin. Already a European leader in its field I am confident that the company will go from strength to strength and that it will find the required skills from our talented workforce to fill these new positions. I look forward to watching Smartbox progress in its rapidly developing market.''
CEO of Smartbox Group, John Perkins said: “I am delighted to announce the creation of an additional 100 new jobs at our Dublin offices. The expansion of our Dublin Headquarters will see headcount rise to over 500 people this year. The company recorded strong growth in fiscal year 2016/2017, with a record €480m in business volume, an 11% increase. This expansion today is a further endorsement of Smartbox Group’s commitment to Dublin and we are delighted with the quality talent, which we can access here in Ireland, along with leveraging the support of the wider R&D ecosystem. These will be key enablers to help Smartbox deliver an exceptional customer experience to ensure the future successful development of Smartbox Group”.
Welcoming the announcement CEO of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan said: “Smartbox Group has experienced significant growth and success since it arrived in Dublin and I am very hopeful that this trend will continue for many years to come. The company’s decision to continue to expand their operations in Ireland represents an invaluable international endorsement for the country and for the skilled workforce residing here. It will act as a strong selling point for other technology companies considering moving here.”
ENDS
For further information contact Press Office, D/Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation ph. 6312200 or press.office@djei.ie
About Smartbox Group
Smartbox Group is the pioneer and European leader in the experience gifts. Smartbox Group sold 6.5 million experience gifts in Europe over the past year. With 480 million euros of business volume, the group alone accounts for half of the European business volume of experience gifts estimated at 1 billion euros in 2016. It is present in 10 countries: France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and Germany. The group holds the number 1 position in 7 of them, most notably France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and UK.
Smartbox products offer a wide choice of experience themes; overnight stays, wellness, adventure, gastronomy and special occasion multi-themes, for customers to offer as gifts to beneficiaries. Smartbox Group’s experience gifts are available in 12 000 major retail outlets across Europe: department stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, as well as online on the various company branded websites and other online retailers such as Amazon. Smartbox’s experience gifts are vouchers presented in retail outlets and online in a CD-size giftbox also containing a user guide. Smartbox experience gifts are also sold directly online via a collection of downloadable vouchers. The group works with 40,000 service providers across Europe and has over 950 employees across Europe.
The group today also announces the acquisition of Odisseias (subject to approval from competition regulators), which is the leader in the experience gift category in Portugal, with 75% market share. Odisseias employs 50 people and recorded 12 million euros sales in 2016. Odisseias becomes therefore the 8th brand of Smartbox Group and adds another country leadership position to the group.
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