Barry Murphy, Managing Director at Sage Ireland
Barry is the Managing Director of Sage in Ireland. With a background in small businesses, he leapt into the corporate world in 2011.
His prior background in running SMEs and his extensive international experience in direct and channel businesses has allowed him to apply a rational and customer-centric approach.
Barry has more than 25 years' experience in sales and leadership in various tech and non-tech industry sectors around the world.
He has a young family with his two girls now taking up most of his spare time.
Tell us about your current role and what you like about your career or areas of focus.
I lead two parts of our business here – the first element is to support our market presence here locally in Ireland.
The second piece focuses on supporting our multi-disciplined staff across our sites. The common denominator is enabling people to be their best every day.
What inspires you, motivates you, helps you to make each day count?
In work, I love to see people succeed and grow. And have fun. Whether that is customers, colleagues or partners, I genuinely get a great kick out of it. I also come from a small business background, so I feel I would have the first-hand experience of the day to day challenges that face SME's.
In a corporate world, I believe it's important to have my feet on the ground as my background helps me to connect with our customers. And what we do is of real value to businesses. On top of that, Sage is very connected with the community through our Sage Foundation.
This gives us a variety of avenues to give back to our community, and I find this to be really rewarding. It might sound a bit clichéd, but I really feel that it gives me a better sense of purpose to know that we contribute in a tangible way.
Outside of your professional work area, what hobbies or interests do you have or what other areas of your life are of real importance to you?
I'm a huge sports fan and dabble a bit with golf and keeping fit. The golf has gone by the wayside a bit once my kids came along. But I don't miss it as I'm one of those that really enjoy spending time with my kids.
When it comes to your life chosen career, is there a phrase, quote or saying that you really like?
There's never a bad time to make a good decision.
What are you most proud of in your life?
Besides my kids, which I could go on and on about, I actually have no formal education beyond second level. And I had a fairly inconsistent CV, to say the least when I joined Sage.
I was also told by a couple of career coaches that I would hit the ceiling if I did not go back to get my qualifications. However, I had run various micro-businesses, and this really helped me to gain that most valuable of assets – common sense.
I started as a sales manager, right at the height of the last recession. But through a series of internal moves - sometimes sideways – I built out my experience, my network and ultimately my confidence. And my career progressed. Touch wood, it's not finished progressing.
What do you wish you had known when you started out?
To paraphrase Jim Collins, getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off) is the most effective way to building a great team. And a great team is the engine that fires up your success.
If you rigorously follow that rule of thumb and prioritise that accordingly, you will win. I didn't always do that, particularly earlier in my career. And I can see that as a key differentiator now.
Who do you most admire in business, academic or creative circles?
I admire disruptors and those that challenge the status quo – for example, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Jurgen Klopp. People that look at the same picture that we all look at, but they see something different.
What companies, brands or institutions do you like or do you think are getting it right?
Netflix, Sky, New Zealand Government, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Get out of your comfort zone as often as you can as it helps you to develop – for example; I really feared public speaking. But I read up on how to approach it, gave myself a real event deadline and practised, practised, practised.
Now I'm not a fantastic orator by any stretch, but I feel I have developed to be competent – and therefore confident - enough to not worry about it. And getting out of your comfort zone is actually fun most of the time, believe it or not.
What drives or motivates you each day in a work environment?
I have young children and watching them and how they use technology from such an early age, is a real eye-opener.
Not to sound too much like the old man that I sometimes feel I am now, but this is not the same as when I grew up. Kids are now hardwired to use evolving technology.
The pace of change is fast and yet it’s accelerating. And it will continue to accelerate. I love being part of driving that change.
Ultimately, we have to help our customers to thrive, and I believe what we do is not only helping them to succeed today but is helping them to build to the future.
What are your thoughts on the future of social media?
Social media is already mainstream media. And that carries opportunities and risks. Cambridge Analytica is an example of how this source of big data can be used nefariously to drive the agenda of the highest bidder.
But big data is also used to drive social change in a positive way – look at the groundswell that has arisen on the back of Greta Thunberg's environmental activism. This was driven through the various social channels and demonstrated how we can collectively and progressively approach a global challenge like this.
The balancing act is really how to have effective international governance on something that is essentially free speech. That will be an ongoing debate, no doubt.
What is your favourite social media platform, and why?
LinkedIn for business. Twitter for the fun stuff.
Do you have a mentor, or have you ever been a mentor to anyone?
I had a great mentor earlier in my career – they have since retired – and this positive experience and guidance made me feel like I really had to pay it forward.
Hence, I am a mentor to 2 people currently. I think mentorship is a great way to get no-strings-attached advice, ideas and insights from a mentor's experience to help mentees navigate and thus enrich their career.
How do you network? What is your preferred way to network?
Face to face and in-person are my preferred ways to network. This has changed in more recent times due to COVID 19 and social distancing requirements, which is driving us all to do things differently.
But I think we are all agile enough to learn how to still connect effectively using technology. In truth though, I still look forward to the days when we won't be concerned about shaking someone's hand.
What advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same area of work?
My role has many different requirements and skills – but I'm not the best at any of them on their own. So, I need to leverage from other people's skillsets all the time.
That means I need to have a decent working knowledge of a lot of disciplines while being able to tie them all together to make sure that they are all pointed in the same direction.
Therefore, I need to evolve my people management skills continually. I would say this is 70-80% learned, and consequently, I believe that it is something that you can skill up on.
What do you feel is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
Fear of failure means a lot of people don't take that first step. Or sometimes that first step can be too large as the goal-setting and benchmarks are unrealistic. That's usually a sign of bad planning.
How do you define success, and what lessons have you learned so far that you could share with our audience?
Defining success is obviously a very subjective viewpoint and in fact, a complicated answer to give as it has so many angles to look from. Personally, I associate success with a feeling. A sense of contentment, fulfilment, or personal happiness is the moment at which I feel successful.
I think it's really important to recognise those points in time when you have achieved your success as it gives you that bank of positive experience that you can build from. I also feel that while succeeding on your own feels good, success with others feels a whole lot better.
What skills do you feel have helped you to become successful?
Listening – a former boss of mine used the old adage of "2 ears one mouth – use them in proportion" all the time. Probably with good reason with me at that age, and that has always stood to me.
But that didn't actually come naturally – I had to work on it and try to create the 'muscle-memory' to become an effective listener. The good news is there are lots of tools out there to help to develop this skill. Common sense is also quite underrated in my view, and yet it is so important.
Is there anything new that you are working on or involved in that you would like to share?
COVID 19 has hit some people and organisations very hard. A lot of charities are also getting really tested on fundraising. In Sage, CSR activity is run through our Sage Foundation.
However, when everyone went to work from home, we had to pivot quickly to figure out how all of our teams could contribute their 5 Foundation days each per year while feeling connected to our communities.
This is where our fantastic Sage Foundation ambassadors kicked into gear – they have recently organised 2 'Big Days In' with over 2,000 colleagues supporting more than 100 charities globally.
We also got our families involved, and this has created a real buzz in what could be quite oppressive times. The reason I am sharing this is because I feel that this crisis has not been easy for anyone - mental health is becoming a larger challenge now than ever before.
And yet, when you reach out and connect with others, for good causes particularly, you can really feel an uplift in your own morale. I personally found this activity to be quite inspirational and humbling.