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Big Red Cloud has taken a lead sponsor’s role at the inaugural Dublin rugby sevens tournament, the Dublin 7s Festival, to be held in Donnybrook Stadium on May 28th.

The Big Red Cloud logo will adorn the jersey of the Wild Geese in the Elite Men’s competition. The ‘Geese’, as they are more commonly referred to, are comprised predominantly of AIL players and are a team that has racked up some impressive victories in recent years, chief among them, the Dubai International title as well as the Kinsale Sevens Premier competition.

Rugby sevens has risen in popularity in recent years and this is no more evident by the fact that rugby sevens will become an Olympic sport at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this August. With 11 of the 12 teams confirmed for Rio, the climax to the global qualification process will deliver the final men’s team at the Stade Louis II in Monaco which will host the men’s tournament on 18-19 June. The Ireland sevens team must climb out of a group that contains both Samoa and Tonga. Tough task.

The organisers of the Dublin 7s Festival have high hopes that their concept will become a permanent fixture on the sporting calendar in Ireland. Certainly, Donnybrook is well positioned to support such a festival and there is no shortage of top class rugby facilities in the environs of Donnybrook to support the tournament as it grows.

Here at Big Red Cloud we are no strangers to rugby sponsorship. You may recall we had the chance-in-a-lifetime in 2015 when the Leinster team ran out onto the turf at the RDS with the Big Red Cloud logo splayed across their chests. That was compliments of the Sponsor for a Day initiative by Bank of Ireland which granted one lucky company the opportunity to have their logo on Big Red Cloud online accounting sponsor for a daythe front of the Leinster Rugby jersey for a European Champions Rugby game. On the night in question, Leinster ran in 7 tries from 7 different try scorers and racked up their highest points score in European competition in 9 seasons. Some achievement – great for Big Red Cloud.

Dublin 7s FestivalThe Dublin 7s Festival, on the other hand, is a grassroots event that will grow and grow as sevens rugby looks set to capture larger audiences both in Ireland and overseas. For Big Red Cloud, it gives our brand and our accounting software the opportunity to get it in on the ground floor and to be associated with an event that will in time become a sporting event of national stature.

The challenge for small business owners reading this blog post is to find an event in your community that you can become associated with. Check our social media this week and you’ll see plenty of activity around the Dublin 7s Festival. We’ll be writing some more in this blog about the festival and why branding was and is a core consideration in our decision to become a sponsor of the Dublin 7s Festival.

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to 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 two months, 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 As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)

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