Corporate social responsibility – at the heart of Datapac’s business strategy
Karen O’ Connor, general manager service delivery, Datapac, explains how corporate social responsibility and a people focused approach informs Datapac’s activities and business strategy.
At Datapac, we strongly believe that companies must take responsibility for their impact on communities. It is our belief that the actions we take as an enterprise should be mutually supportive of the interests of wider society. Through Datapac’s comprehensive (CSR) policy, we aim to embrace and encourage a positive impact through our activities with communities, societies, employees and the environment.
Enhancing employment opportunity in our local communities
At Datapac, we’re passionate about creating and supporting employment in our local areas. While it’s positive that the live register continues to fall, there are still some areas that have been underserved when it comes to job creation. That’s why we are delighted to make such a positive contribution to our local communities in both the South East region, as well as South West Dublin. We’re continually investing in these areas and are responsible for growing numbers of direct and indirect jobs in these regions. This type of job creation is vital to the health and prosperity of the region. It also provides many people with an alternative to long commutes and contributes to a better quality of life.
Datapac also places a huge focus on collaboration with local schools and third level institutions. Through these partnerships, we offer locally based work placement opportunities and graduate programmes to encourage skilled work and employment in our communities. We have employed more than 160 third level students on our work placement programme to considerable success for both parties. Most recently, we have hired 10 graduating students from Carlow IT on our graduate programme. We also work closely with local schools, particularly Transition Year students, to provide taster sessions of what it’s like to work in a technology company, including career talks with various team members including our most senior engineers. We hope to encourage more of the future talent pool to consider choosing STEM related careers and courses.
Supporting the local economy, arts and culture
As we continue to grow, we also continue to give back and support the development of our local economies. One example is our work with the Wexford Chamber of Commerce to promote business in the area, including our €50,000 contribution to the development of the Datapac Business Resource Centre at the Wexford Chamber of Commerce. The centre offers local businesses the opportunity to avail of the latest technology and highest quality facilities while providing a place to do business at the heart of the local community. We deployed our specialist team for the technical fit-out of the centre and continue to provide ongoing support to this fantastic local business resource.
Datapac is also a keen supporter of the arts in the South East and our relationship with the National Opera House in Wexford, spanning over a decade, is emblematic of this. Earlier this year, we announced a new five year sponsorship deal with the National Opera House, valued at €175,000, which will help maintain the world-renowned status of the establishment. Having such an amenity, making quality arts and entertainment available in the South East, is essential to regional quality of life – helping Wexford-based businesses attract the best talent to work and live in the area.
Charity partnerships
Along with our own programmes directed at improving our local communities, we realise that there is excellent and impactful work being done by charities around us. Forging committed partnerships is a core value of Datapac and this applies to our work with charities also.
For example, for the 6th year running, we partnered with the Solas Cancer Support Centre to sponsor the 2019 South East Run and Walk for Life. The annual event raises much needed funds for the Solas Centre, which provides practical, social and emotional support services to people in the South East directly affected by cancer, as well as their families and carers. This is a cause close to our hearts at Datapac, and Solas makes a hugely positive impact across the South East region by empowering those affected by cancer to continue to have healthy and fulfilling lives.
At Datapac, we have often shared our time, resources and expertise with charity partners. We are extremely proud of the results our long standing partnerships yield, such as our support of Special Olympics Ireland for over two decades. A key milestone for our team was when Datapac was shortlisted for the Excellence in Community Award at the Chambers Ireland annual CSR Awards, in recognition of our work in transforming the IT infrastructure of children’s charity Barretstown. Being able to leverage our IT knowledge and experience to give back to such worthwhile causes gives our team immense satisfaction and pride.
Giving back
Underlying all of Datapac’s corporate social responsibility actions is a desire to give something back to communities and employees for all their support and loyalty throughout the years. This governs our CSR policy, but likewise, our CSR policy transcends all aspects of our business, from our newest starter to our most experienced employee.
The core values of Datapac are reflected in our corporate social responsibility programme. We wish to enhance the lives of our customers and in the same way enhance the lives of people in our local community. We go about achieving this wish with an emphasis on quality in everything we do – with regards not only the services we deliver to customers, but also in all of our corporate social responsibility and charity work. Datapac is proud of its heritage, and in respect of our legacy and local community, continue to strategically invest in skills development and job creation and expansion in the areas in which we operate.
By integrating our core values into our approach to CSR, we have achieved many successes our team is proud of. For instance, winning the Corporate Social Responsibility Award at the Wexford Business Awards 2017 was an achievement cherished by our hard-working team. Judges cited our commitment to community enhancement and empowerment, and our development of an internal culture of corporate social responsibility involving all employees as key reasons for awarding Datapac.
Overall, our corporate social responsibility programme has made a tangible impact on the communities we serve and the people within those communities. Our team are empowered to make a real difference, have shown a tremendous appetite to do so, and in turn have made a major positive impact in our society. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners and to grow in parallel with the communities we serve.
If you would like to be part of a team that has Corporate Social Responsibility at the heart of its business then why not check out our current vacancies here
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"At Barretstown, we rebuild the lives of children, and their families, affected by childhood cancer and other serious illnesses. We serve 5,000 campers a year and have 1200 volunteers each year. Communication is crucially important and Datapac has helped us to streamline, improve and ensure efficiency."
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"Datapac has provided us with a fantastic product and world-class levels of service and support. Whenever people ask me about our experience with Datapac I’m always ready to sing their praises and I would happily recommend their services to any organisation."
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"For many years Datapac has been our sole supplier for the maintenance of Personal Computers and Peripherals in Ireland. Through their Service Centres in Wexford and Dublin, Datapac provides excellent support to our businesses throughout the country and consistently meets the SLA targets which we have set. The skill, expertise and experience of their engineers and other technical support personnel are of the highest standard."
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“The value of dealing with an HP Gold partner in this process can’t be underestimated. Datapac provide us with a local touch and can cover the full range of our IT requirements, but when there is a specific technical requirement like this, they can bring the specialist technical resources of HP to the table. HP and Datapac had a thorough discussion with us around our requirement - and had really done their homework - and then were able to provide us with a very highly specified test platform for us to prove the application on before we committed to purchase.”
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Datapac understands our needs and requirements and has the expertise and experience to follow through on all our requests. Our constant need to reduce costs has been assisted by Datapac's ability to suggest alternative solutions and methods whilst improving both efficiency and productivity. Our partnership with Datapac is akin to having an IT department on site that we simply could not provide ourselves.