As FDC Group celebrates 50 years in business, we are sitting down with our Senior Management team to gain insights from their experience from working at FDC Group.

For the January feature, we spoke to FDC Group General Manager Jack Murphy to learn more about his views, values, and projections for the company. Jack is the founding member of FDC Group and has succeeded in building the organisation to where it is today. It is interesting to hear Jack’s insights on some of the early challenges and how the first 2-3 years were trying for FDC Group from a viability, financial, and client perspective.

FDC Group was established in 1973; the same year that Ireland joined the European Union. Ireland’s involvement with the European Union played a major role with the country’s agricultural development. Reflecting on this time, Jack noted three key elements that became central to the evolvement of the organisation:

1. Building a client-base that we would serve to the very best of our ability. While being eager to serve, there was a focus on expanding our service offerings to clients.
2. Attracting a specialised staff to serve clients in the best way possible.
3. Diversifying across rural Ireland to meet the needs of our clients.

Jack also mentioned that “in 1974, the farming tax came into existence, and this became central to our business development model as our services centred around this”.

Jack continued to reflect on the challenges faced in the last 50 years. He shared that “to preserve the integrity of the organisation, it was necessary to build loyalty among our client-base and to ensure the clients knew that they could depend on us. Though to achieve this, we needed quality people and to invest in building the capabilities of our people to maintain the client loyalty”.

Looking to the future of the company, Jack believes that the key to the FDC Group operation is maintaining its corporate independence, while continuously progressing with our clients. Jack emphasised that “our range of services need to evolve based on the needs of the marketplace and to maintain our indigenous value of service.” In doing this, FDC Group aims to achieve one of its main objectives – holding a presence in the 32 counties of Ireland.

One of the takeaways from the interview with Jack was the evident respect Jack has for those around him. He understands that FDC Group is based on the extraordinary loyalty and immense hard work of its staff. Upon reflection, Jack feels that his ability to delegate and empower those around him is one of the things that has worked well for the organisation. You can sense the true appreciation and respect that Jack has for the people of FDC Group as he remarks “we are as good as our last job and the quality of our last job is based on the effort and skill of the people that do it. Central to this is building people careers through the work we do and loyalty to FDC Group is repaid with loyalty to our people”.