Agora Publishing set to open multilingual contact centre

Agora Publishing set to open multilingual contact centre & technology services centre will add 100 new jobs.

Agora Publishing, a group of global publishing companies with offices in over a dozen countries, has announced that it is set to significantly expand its operations in the South East. The project is being supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland.

The companies, which located their lifestyle publishing operation International Living to Waterford in 1998, are to establish a multilingual contact centre and a technology services centre in Waterford, adding 100 new jobs over three years.

The contact centre will provide multilingual customer support via phone, electronic correspondence and click to chat to Agora’s international and US affiliates’ clients.

The technology services group is being set up to provide application support, web and mobile application development services to the Agora group of companies.

Daryl Berver, President of Publishing Services, who was in Waterford today to make the announcement, said:

“We are very pleased to make this announcement today, we have had a long relationship with Waterford and this investment allows us to meet the demands of our growing business and take advantage of the high quality of talent available.”

Speaking at the announcement Minister of State, Damien English TD, said:

“Today’s announcement by Agora is a great vote of confidence in Ireland and in County Waterford. The decision to site an International multilingual contact centre and a technology services centre here reflects the strength and depth in the offering of our educated and skilled workforce in the South East”.

33 people are presently employed by International Living Publishing Ltd. at Elysium House in Waterford city. The companies have chosen to locate their centralised operations in Portlaw where they acquired a period building which is currently under renovation. A capital investment of some €4.4M is being made in the project, with the aim of the works being completed by mid 2016. All three companies will relocate to Portlaw at that time. In the interim, the new companies will locate in temporary office space in Waterford city.

IDA CEO Martin Shanahan said:

“Agora’s decision to significantly expand its operations in Ireland is most welcome. It is an excellent development for County Waterford and the South East region. Achieving increased levels of investment in regional locations is an important focus of IDA’s new strategy ‘Winning – Foreign Direct Investment 2015-2019’ and this announcement of 100 jobs for County Waterford is an important step in that direction. I wish the Agora Group every success.”