An Irish technology support company has become the latest firm to call North Texas home.
Dublin-based Origina formally opens its U.S. headquarters in Plano on Monday as the company expands its presence and targets an increasingly valuable market in North America.
Origina is a third-party maintainer of IBM software and aims to provide better service and support for a lower cost to users of the technology giant’s products.
CEO Tomás O’Leary likens the company’s services to an independent auto repair shop. Instead of relying on the original maker of the car to provide service, other after-market companies are able to provide comparable services, often for less than the manufacturer would charge.
“You’d expect to see this in every industry,” O’Leary said of the after-market concept. “For years, really, there was only an after-market in the hardware side, nothing in software. But as software’s become more mature, and it doesn’t break as often, you find now there are opportunities for organizations like us to come in and provide software-independent support.”
O’Leary founded Origina in 2012, when he realized that licensing agreements between software companies and end-users legally permitted third-party support and maintenance.
“I spotted a company here in the U.S. that was doing [support] around SAP and Oracle, and I could see in 2012, there was nobody doing this in IBM,” he said. “I’m thinking, ‘Hang on a second, why is there nobody doing it?’”
Origina’s first customer was a French company in 2015. Its client roster now totals over 130 companies, including Neiman Marcus, Magellan Health, Academy Sports and Transocean. O’Leary said the company is growing 100% year-over-year, and its main goal in the next few years is to grow to reach 1,000 customers as quickly as possible, with at least half of those based in North America.
A distinctive feature of Origina’s offerings is what O’Leary calls “concierge-level service.” Instead of having to use a call center or navigate outsourced customer service, Origina is already familiar with customers and the products they use before they even pick up the phone.
“I think the reason companies love what we do is that we provide choice,” O’Leary said. “We simplify the complexity of all these license agreements and what you can and can’t do, because people really don’t know sometimes.”
The company’s Plano office at 5151 Headquarters Drive is home to 23 Origina employees. O’Leary said he hopes to expand that to 80 Dallas-area employees by 2023, with additional employees located around the country.
The Dallas area is home to the U.S. headquarters or international subsidiaries of at least 53 foreign companies, according to the Dallas Regional Chamber. O’Leary cited the friendliness and direct nature of Texas residents for making the state an ideal place for Origina’s U.S. base.
“Texans say it as it is, in my experience,” he said. “If you think about anything to do with technology, it really is designed to be complex when it shouldn’t be. So our message is about simplicity and unraveling that complexity, and you couldn’t be in a better place than Texas.”
