Founded by Rory Gillen in 2005, ILTB provides stock market training courses and seminars. The operation has three staff in total and holds one day-long course every month. "The course aims to provide people with information on how to invest in the stock market," explains Gillen. The founder and course director of ILTB says that stock markets are much more volatile than other potential routes to investment, such as property. "There are characteristics to [stock market investment] that don't come naturally to people," he says.
Gillen saw an opportunity to provide a service to train people in playing the stock market game. The challenge for Gillen was to find a way to fit the development of that business around his full-time role with Merrion Capital. This was where the internet entered the equation.
Online presence
ILTB does not have an office or any physical premises to speak of. There are no cabinets filled with files, nor even a pad of paper or pens. ILTB doesn't need any of these.
"We're almost 100 percent internet-based," says Gillen. "Clients can book places at our workshops and seminars through the site." Once customers have attended these events, they can sign up for membership of the website to get information on further training. This enables the business to maintain a relationship with clients after the one-day course is over.
Client information is recorded online through a customer relationship management system. The system enables quick access to customer data and allows the firm to communicate with clients via email. The Dublin-based business is able to do all this as a result of services provided by WandSoft. The web consultancy firm helped ILTB build its website and develop a database to store customer information.
Because it's all online, Gillen can access this information from anywhere. "It's a simple but effective system," he says. "A lot of people can get answers to queries on our website without ever having to meet us."
Flexible options
ILTB has no rent or office expense costs to worry about, and the only time a physical premises is required is when the company holds its seminars and workshops, which it runs in hotels. Furthermore, the online nature of the business means that staff can communicate with each other and with customers from any location.
For Gillen, this flexibility is critical to the very existence of the firm. "The internet allows us to offer a course that we could not do five years ago," he says. In previous years, running the operation, which sees one course offered to around 30 people monthly, simply would not have been worth the effort. Now, however, ILTB can provide this service by managing all of the other business functions, such as marketing and database management, from one location online. All of this has helped the business move into a strong position in its market.
"I'd say we're well ahead of other firms [that offer similar courses] in Ireland," says Gillen. The ILTB founder says its competitors are not embracing IT to help deliver these courses. "If you look internationally, some of the other firms look pretty savvy but I'd say we stack up well against them."
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the business is that Gillen and his colleagues do not come from technical backgrounds. "I'm no IT expert but we have a business that is completely web-based," he says. The user-friendly nature of its IT applications has helped the firm attain its goals.
Site development
ILTB has constantly strived to improve its website, to deliver more to its customers. Videos featuring interviews with experts and examples of the firm's workshops have been posted on the site to give clients a better understanding of the business.
Gillen says the business will continue to look at ways to develop its site. "The current website is a big upgrade on where it was six months ago, following the addition of video interviews," he says.
The Dublin firm has shown that a company need not have the most technically savvy staff to take advantage of all the internet has to offer.
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