Addressing Cork Chamber of Commerce this morning (Thursday, February 25th 2010), Abtran’s Managing Director, Michael Fitzgerald said the collaboration between Abtran and 4C will help to position Ireland as a centre of excellence in the €300 billion global business processes industry.

The project is being funded through the Innovation Partnership programme which involves financial investment by Abtran and funding from Enterprise Ireland. It forms part of Abtran’s ongoing €6 million investment in its new Learning & Innovation Centre at the Irish company’s Cork headquarters, which is supported by Enterprise Ireland and where 800 staff are currently employed.

Abtran’s Learning & Innovation Centre has a team of highly innovative and creative individuals drawn from both the business and higher education sectors. The centre researches, develops and tests new technologies and services in a low risk environment using established R&D techniques and practices. The strategic aim of the Abtran 4C partnership is to combine expertise around the development of next generation technologies to dramatically improve and innovate in the delivery of business services.

The research link-up will seek to reduce or remove operational constraints and limitations experienced by business process providers and their clients. The project will involve research into advanced technologies and processes for the contact centre industry including data mining and artificial intelligence.

Areas to be studied include ‘intelligent call checking’, ‘early warning systems’ and systems for ‘predictive behaviour’ in managing contact centre performance and customer interactions. The project will test complex sets of mathematical algorithms developed by 4C against data based on real business scenarios collected from Abtran’s operations.

Speaking at the Cork Chamber breakfast briefing, Michael Fitzgerald, Managing Director, Abtran commented: “This innovation partnership with UCC will establish Cork as a centre of excellence for shared services through R&D and innovation. It will help to create a value-added network between business, universities and the public sector to deliver smart solutions with strong market potential. We expect the findings of our research to be converted into new business development, jobs creation and even better service delivery by Abtran in shared service partnerships with our clients. We intend that this innovation will contribute strongly to Ireland’s growing reputation as a world class destination for internationally traded services.” “This project is very much a product of our Learning & Innovation Centre. We intend to create innovative, sustainable and scalable efficiencies which will transform the way our clients do business, improving quality of delivery, increasing overall competitiveness and contributing further to Ireland’s overall economic growth", he added.

Professor Eugene Freuder, Director of Cork Constraint Computation Centre said: “The work of 4C involves the creation of intelligent computer systems which support better decision making and help to solve problems more rapidly. As well as discovering new techniques and processes, it is very important for research to be of benefit to industry and the economy. In Abtran, we see a commercially focused company capable of translating research into business growth and new market opportunities. They are committed to business innovation based on technological advancement, knowledge creation and the removal of barriers and practices which constrain progress. We look forward to the development of competitive new business processes in partnership with Abtran.”

Congratulating Abtran and 4C, Frank Ryan, CEO of Enterprise Ireland said: “Abtran is a client of Enterprise Ireland’s scaling programme which supports companies that have the potential for rapid and steady growth to quickly achieve international scale and become significant employers and global leaders in their fields. Investment in research and knowledge development has made the company deeply competitive and has been a critical success factor in its progress towards becoming a fully-scaled international leader in business process outsourcing. This collaboration with the academic community through 4C is an innovation partnership that will further stimulate innovation in Business Process Outsourcing, generating value for all sides of the partnership and driving Ireland’s reputation as a global centre of excellence for this sector.”

Picture L-R: Professor Eugene Freuder, Director of Cork Constraint Computation Centre, Michael Fitzgerald, Managing Director, Abtran and Brendan Cremen, Director, Office of Technology Transfer, UCC.

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