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Brian O’Sullivan, Founder, Max Life Fitness
Having opened his first gym outlet at the start of the pandemic, Cork-based entrepreneur Brian O’Sullivan has recently launched a luxury athleisure-wear range – MaxLife Apparel – and plans to open a second gym in the next six months.
Since July 2021, once restrictions were lifted, Max Life’s gym membership grew at an increasing pace. The Wilton location currently has around 1,100 members and is on target to sign up 2,000 members this year. We plan to open a second location in the Little Island area and are looking to expand into a 20,000 sq ft warehouse.
Max Life is an official Hammer Strength Training Centre, one of the first in Cork to be certified in this way. We give members access to bespoke and premium training equipment with affordable pricing, which sets us apart from other gyms. We are committed to continuously investing in state-of-the-art, best-inclass equipment.
For MaxLife Apparel, we sampled from China, Turkey and other countries looking for the right fabrics, quality and materials. After a year of research, the product development and testing phases were complete. We have faced hurdles as a result of the
“The plan is to expand into a franchise model. Low-cost, highperformance gym models are my inspiration – high volumes are key, and
Max Life is enjoying rapid growth in this area.” global logistics crisis, but managed to launch our first line in time for Christmas 2021. We are currently recruiting and expect to increase the workforce from seven to 20 people in the next 12 months. The plan for the fitness side is to begin with expansion throughout Munster and then broaden our scope across the country in the next two to three years. We want to expand globally with MaxLife Apparel.
Having developed a cutting-edge solution to addressing inefficiencies in procurement, Cork-based company Keelvar was ideally placed to tap into global demand for ways to tackle supply chain upheaval brought on by Covid-19.
Transportation disruption has been one of the main headaches for business since Covid-19 hit, particularly in ocean freight where port shutdowns and congestion have caused chaos. It stands to reason then that the companies that can quickly re-orchestrate their supply chain and find alternative routes and suppliers will have a significant competitive advantage.
Enter Keelvar, a Cork-headquartered company, which is helping many of the world’s largest players in various sectors to achieve this and more through intelligent sourcing optimisation and automation.
It has created autonomous software agents, or ‘sourcing bots’, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, that can automate most of the tedious tasks associated with procurement activities.
A survey released by Keelvar last October revealed that managing supply chain disruption is the top priority for 90% of procurement and sourcing executives. Its rst annual ‘Voices of Sourcing’ report was based on feedback from over 100 procurement leaders in a number of industries, around 75% of whom worked for US$1bn-plus enterprises.
“Procurement leaders are facing severe capacity and labour limitations, a spike in canceled contracts, supplier risk and more while trying to balance priorities such as sustainability and reliability. With complexity at an all-time high, organisations must have the ability to make quick sourcing decisions to ensure continuity and resiliency,” says Keelvar CEO Alan Holland, who founded the company in 2012 as a spin-out from University College Cork where he was a lecturer in AI. He rst started studying supply chains and procurement while working part-time at his parents’ chemical company.
“I could see that procurement was stuck in the dark ages with Excel spreadsheets and badly needed a more sophisticated solution. When a link in a supply chain network is broken, Keelvar sourcing bots work quickly to discover alternative pathways and carriers and can autopilot those negotiations.”
Holland cites the example of one manufacturing client, which couldn’t get its medicines into hospitals in the US during the Covid-19 crisis. e usual routes it relied on such as the bellies of aircra s were gone. “ e sourcing bots were able to discover alternative pathways with capacity much faster than humans could, negotiate rates and get the order out quickly – it was so tight and included sending goods by road for a few hundred miles through France and Spain and using a truck to Memphis,” says Holland.
“Supply chain dynamics have shi ed forever. e carriers that own vessels and aircra are in a position of power now as they have the key assets needed to make supply chains operate well. Retailers and pharma companies are going to have to work on terms that are more amenable to their carriers and work with them. ey also need to be able to measure performance and know when to switch routes.”
RAPID GROWTH TRAJECTORY
Further to securing US$18m in Series A funding in June 2020, Keelvar has been growing rapidly with “huge demand” for its so ware-as-a-service solutions across all major industries, according to Holland. Among its 60 clients are household names such as Coca Cola, Samsung and Tesco. Headcount currently stands at 80 people and Holland expects this to reach close to 200 within a couple of years.
“We are a young vendor compared to most of our competitors which are over 20 years old. Having adopted AI from the start, many of the team are experts in this and we’re working with a more modern technology stack than other vendors,” he says.
“ e great thing about technology that cracks an important real-world problem is that you can scale up so much faster than in asset-heavy industries. We doubled in size last year and expect to do the same this year. Many of the world’s top brands turn to us for their largest projects as we have developed a reputation as the best of breed when it comes to powerful sourcing technology.
“Customers such as Siemens have automated over 90% of procurement tasks using our technology and have found it improves speed and agility and the timeliness of deliveries because the sourcing bots can be objective. ey can be used to measure many of the qualitative aspects of the process such as reliability rates and transit times – they’re better at tactical buying than humans as so much more data can be injected into them.”
PROCUREMENT DRIVE
The seeds for Keelvar were sown in 2008 while Alan Holland was working in the 4C research laboratory in the Department of Computer Science, University College Cork. He and his team helped Cork City Council to run a €6m tender for an eclectic fleet of 250 vehicles using the novel auction technology they had developed. “Our best-practice solution allowed suppliers to describe bundles of lots, conditional discounts and capacity constraints; then used optimisation to find the most e icient allocation. It reduced Cork City Council’s bill by 15-20%,” Holland explains. “The next vehicle suite we worked on four years later was for a global multinational going to market with €6bn in spend for 250,000 vehicles, which resulted in a saving of €1bn. I circulated a research paper and others came knocking. I decided then there were definitely the makings of a strong company.”
John Trainor, Founder and CEO, Onside
It’s shaping up to be an interesting year for sponsorship, with growing support for women’s sport, new venue naming rights opening up and an increased emphasis on SPORTINGa chance
social media and fan experience, writes SORCHA CORCORAN
For the rst time in its history, the Women’s Six Nations rugby championship has a title partner this year, following the announcement of a landmark partnership between entertainment platform TikTok and Six Nations Rugby in January. e deal also involves TikTok being an o cial partner to the Guinness Six Nations and Autumn Nations series through to 2025.
John Trainor, Founder and CEO of sponsorship consulting rm Onside, sees TikTok as the “one to watch” in the sponsorship landscape in general, which has been buzzing with new activity in recent months. “TikTok dipped its toe in the water as a global sponsor of the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament, which was not necessarily groundbreaking but well executed. e Six Nations Rugby deal is a game changer for the visibility of women’s sport.”
Onside’s annual Irish Sponsorship Industry Outlook published in January stated that the success of women’s sport in Ireland “marks it out as by far the biggest growth platform in sport in the near to medium term”. It found that nine out of ten sponsors see women’s sport as a signi cant opportunity this year, up from eight out of ten last year.
Nearly two-thirds of industry professionals surveyed selected a female as their most marketable personality for 2022, up 28% on 2021, with Kellie Harrington, Katie Taylor, Ellen Keane and Rachel Blackmore leading the way. KPMG recently announced a fouryear extension to its existing partnership with Irish professional golfer Leona Maguire, who was on the winning team for Europe at the Solheim Cup in the US in September.
ACTIVATION ADVANTAGE
For Trainor, TikTok’s partnership with Six Nations Rugby is about much more than the boost it gives to women’s sport. “TikTok will show up across the calendar with its category rights. It will be an innovator and bring in a fresh way to show where sponsorship can t in with a sport or space,” he says. e TikTok move also represents a departure from the “usual suspects” involved in sponsorship deals, such as supermarkets, banks and insurance companies – a trend which Trainor expects to continue.
To date, TikTok has amassed more than 5.1 billion views for its #rugby content, with #SixNationsRugby a rapidly growing hashtag on the platform. As part of the deal with Six Nations Rugby, dedicated TikTok “rugby creators” post rugby-themed content, which fans are encouraged to access from respective tournament and rugby union accounts. In-app activations will include ‘Hashtag Challenges’ to enhance the experience for the fans. e Onside outlook report found that 68% of brands expect to use social media more in 2022 – making it the highest of all activation channels. e next highest is content marketing, followed by video sharing platforms. e use of experiential marketing (+28%) and hospitality (+24%) is expected to increase signi cantly as fans return to venues and live events.
“ is year, a lot of thinking will be done around sponsorship activation and how to win in that space. Demand will be high for unique experiences and early signals are that demand might outstrip supply in terms of the availability of hospitality-type experiences and the ability to ful l them. Brands need to have a Plan A, B and C, depending on how things evolve over the months ahead,” says Trainor.
“In the rst half of the year, there will be a hybrid model, with a mixture of experiences at home and
Irish women’s rugby union player Cliodhna Moloney
in more places beyond the stadium and arena than ever before. Whether it’s incorporating new technology into experiences or establishing a Web3/metaverse presence, there is a clear opportunity for rst-mover advantage.”
PURPOSE-DRIVEN PUSH
Although there is a swing happening towards music and entertainment, sport continues to dominate as a sponsorship option in Ireland, commanding three-quarters of investment and spend. e hottest area of interest for brands this year will be nding ways to integrate sustainability, cause and community into whatever sponsorship arrangements they have, according to Trainor.
“ ere is a genuine desire among brands to do something more purpose-driven in their sponsorship alignments. In the past few years there have been some good benchmarks in Ireland, such as Focus Ireland’s Shine a Light supported by Bord Gáis Energy and Aldi working with the IRFU and Barnardos to develop a cookbook. Increasingly, examples such as these have been presented in boardrooms and this will build further as the swing continues towards the non-sporting space,” he says.
Environmental sustainability platforms have emerged as the Number 1 strongest growth opportunity for 2022, identi ed by 42% of sponsors in the Onside report; while community-based opportunities are growing in appeal through the Covid-19 recovery, at 28%. GAA is still seen to be the strongest growth opportunity within sport due to its ongoing potential in supporting communities during and post the pandemic.
“With more and more organisations seeking to jump on this trend, it will be those that truly and authentically deliver on their promises that will bene t. Partnerships in this area also require more activation than other sponsorships. For brands, this will o en involve really supporting speci c community or sustainability activities in addition to standard promotional tactics,” the report states.
INDUSTRY REBOUND
e Irish sponsorship industry grew by 6% to reach €180m in 2021 and the Onside report estimates further growth of 8% for this year. Over half of the sponsors surveyed will be increasing their sponsorship investment levels in 2022, up from 41% in 2021.
“ e pandemic a ected all marketing activity, but sponsorship has once again proved its worth, accounting for 21% of marketing and communications investment in 2021, up from 16% in 2020. e immediate decline was less steep than in advertising and other parts of the marketing mix and its recovery has been steady and sustainable. e fact that sponsorship agreements are long term in nature contributes to this. We expect two out of three deals built in 2022 to have three- to four-year terms,” says Trainor.
“ e appeal of sponsorship has endured because of its ability to be embedded in live content. Particularly with sport, it is about deepening an a nity with the consumer and hitting a passion point. When cause and community are added into the mix, it scores even more highly.
“No doubt the Russian/Ukrainian con ict will have some impact on all markets but sponsorship is a long-term play and the e ect if any will be spread over time. Our experience of Q1 has been of a relatively active one to date with lots of strong new deals done and a good mix of buyers looking for new assets. Brands that went relatively dark over the past two years are returning to active engagement and consumers are ready to engage with sponsors too.”
VENUE NAMING RIGHTS
There were some notable new Irish venue naming rights in 2021, including 3Olympia Theatre and provincial stadia such as the NUI Galway Connacht GAA Air Dome. According to Onside, pitch and club ground naming rights for rugby and GAA looks set to continue, with three in 10 rights holders exploring options around selling venue naming rights in 2022 – a level higher than in 2019. Already in 2022, FBD Insurance has announced that it is to support Tipperary’s Semple Stadium for the next five years, in a deal that will see the stadium renamed as ‘FBD Semple Stadium’.
