DMG SERVICES ANNOUNCES EUR 2 MILLION EXPANSION OF DUBLIN RECORDS FACILITY
By Che Golden – IT’s Monday 18.09.06
DMG Services, an Irish business services group, will this week launch a EUR 2 million expansion of its Filestores records centre in Dublin's Park West. The expansion is in response to increased demand for Filestores' offsite document storage and management services and supports the company's growth target of EUR 20 million turnover by 2009.
The 300,000 cubic foot extension includes the installation of a fireproof Firelock media storage vault, the first of its kind in Ireland and capable of withstanding temperatures of 1000 degrees centigrade. Used internationally by the US Airforce and Disney for secure storage, the vault is the highest rated fire protection storage environment for computer media available in the industry.
Many of DMG's customers are US subsidiaries. Local customers are dominated by fund management and general insurance companies. The increasing regulatory pressure on these companies has helped the growth of DMG's business in Ireland and managing director Cecil Ryan hopes being able to offer the Firelock vault will consolidate the company's position in the market.
According to Hugh Smith, vice president of marketing for Firelock, it can triple the life span of computer media. 'If regulations require that information be held for 25 years, then storing computer media in a concrete vault or an IT centre is not going to be adequate protection,' he said. 'Computer media is destroyed by humidity and temperatures of 220 centigrade. Under Sarbanes Oxley, directors can be sent to jail if they allow information to be destroyed, even if it is by 'spoilation'.' The Firelock vault also offers an environmental monitoring service that customers can view on the web.
'We can now offer customers a fully integrated storage system,' said Ryan. 'When we first started we were purely concerned with the hard copy side of storage, but digital media has become an integral part of the business. However, our expertise in hard data storage is integral to our success as too often people implement soft solutions without thinking of the hard stuff.'
DMG Services has more than doubled its revenues to EUR 12 million over the past four years and has completed three acquisitions to broaden its service range and geographic coverage. Other companies within the group include Shred-it and Scan Image Services. According to Ryan, the turnover for Scan Image alone has jumped 50 per cent in 12 months.
DMG Services employs 185 people and has four locations across the Republic and Northern Ireland - Dublin, Kilkenny, Gorey and Lisburn. The Northern Irish business has proved particularly lucrative - one of DMG's recent wins was with Hewlett-Packard for the Northern Irish Planning Service and DMG has also won a shredding contract for every government building in Northern Ireland. The group's customer base extends to 2000 companies within the public and private sector.
The company spent around EUR 3 million in 2004 creating a 130,000 square feet self storage facility in Deangrange Business Park, Dublin and in setting up the Park West facility. While there are no further acquisitions on the cards, Ryan has not ruled out the possibility of buying more companies to increase its geographical presence and its market reach. The Firelock vault could also open up the UK market, as no UK company is currently offering a similar facility, although Ryan said the company was focusing in the short term on consolidating its position in Ireland.
