59: Marc O’Dwyer, Founder and Entrepreneur

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc O’Dwyer began his sales career at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic, before succumbing to his entrepreneurial spirit in 1992 when he set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS).  Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software.  Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book.  At that time, the company was losing money.   The company became profitable within six weeks, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One.  Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP, and in 2008, IIS was bought in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, which has been a huge success with a customer retention rate of 94% and unparalleled customer support. Marc sold both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud in April 2025 at which stage the companies had supported over 75,000 businesses. This is the 59th episode in the Davy podcast series ‘Everyday Business with Aidan Donnelly’ with special guest Marc O’Dwyer, Founder and Entrepreneur.

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