Eoghan O’Leary, Group Sales & Marketing Director at Fortus, speaks to Security on Screen about the company’s growth, the new rebrand and what ambitions Fortus have moving forwards
Fortus have been growing at a very good rate over the last few years and with decades worth of experience in the bank as well, so what made you opt for a rebrand?
Two things: firstly, to harness that growth by giving the business and our people a new strategic focus. The rebrand is a lot more than a visual thing, we have an incredible organic culture that’s so intrinsic to what we do, so we wanted to leverage that in our brand.
Secondly, this is a moment of disruption and opportunity in our industry. Our people know this business inside-out and the future is incoming. We wanted to create a brand that could face the future and shape the future for our customers.
In terms of how the business operates, does the rebrand mean anything will change on that front at all? Or is it still business as usual but with a makeover?
As you said, we’ve been growing at pace. And growth opens all kinds of opportunities. It’s vital that you capitalise on growth. We wanted to be ‘match fit’ for everything we see informing the future for our customers and our people.
A rebrand by its very nature means change – and you can see this in our enhanced product and service offering. But it also means rebooting what is at the very core of Fortus. That is our people, both colleagues and customers. That is where the future will be felt.
As far as expanding the business and growing your global reach goes, how do you think a rebrand can help push that?
People, everywhere communicate in stories. Stories travel. Stories help people choose. We wanted to take our history, our ambition and our commitment to service and share a new story, for an industry in change.
Our rebrand is essentially an exercise in doubling down on a shared future. We are passionate about everything we do. And we have a story we want to share. Here. There. Everywhere.
How long was spent planning for it and what companies, if any, did you liaise with in that stage of the rebrand?
The entire strategic process took the best part of a year.
And it started deep within the business. The senior management team and the leadership of every branch and team within the business was brought into the process. We spent serious time asking ourselves big questions. The dialogue had both depth and reach. It was driven by commercial realities. But also, by the future we saw incoming.
We partnered with Hyphen – who are a Dublin based brand and culture strategy consultancy – and once we cracked a strategy, we worked Wilson Creative on our identity and creative design.
In your own words, what do you think makes Fortus stand out in a competitive market space?
Through-out the rebrand process words like commitment, expertise and ambition continually came up in our conversations. You simply can’t fake these qualities.
We take things very personally; we love this business and love the products and solutions we bring to market. We want to secure the future for our customers and ourselves through innovation. I think this focus makes us different.
Finally, with 2023 now among us, what aspirations do you have for the company over the next 12 months?
Sharing our story and our vision with the industry is something I’m very much looking forward to doing in 2023. We will be launching a new innovation very soon, so we will be shouting about this!
We’re committed to securing the future so that means we need to bring even more game changing products and solutions to our customers this year. In 2023 we hope to continue to grow but also continue to serve our partners and people.
