Bernie Carroll, CEO Student Programmes Ireland Ltd
By Matt O’Callaghan
A Charleville based company, Student Programmes Ireland Ltd has been recently named for a prestigious global award.
Global 100 which runs a very prestigious competition every year for the best 100 companies in the world named the Bernie Carroll led company in the Best Student Education category.
Global 100, consists of only 100 of the World’s leading firms and individuals, with votes received from global readers, in over 163 countries worldwide.
The purpose of the Global 100 is to provide the readership with a comprehensive understanding of those firms that are truly leaders within their chosen areas of specialisation.
The Global 100 does not follow the usual process followed by many other publishers. It follows a very specific, very comprehensive process, not commonly used elsewhere in the industry. Following the closure of the voting process, which follows a very strict format of self-submission and third-party nomination, firms are shortlisted and selected as winners.
For each category awarded, a proprietary method of analysis ranks winners based on their domestic and international work. This ranking method produces a list of shortlisted firms, based on a very comprehensive set of criteria.
Once all votes have been received, an independent panel of judges review the votes within each category. The judges will assess the following in their considerations: The strategic nature of work conducted; The complexity of work conducted; The scale of work conducted; Whether the work conducted was done so in a speedy manner, and within budget; Any ground-breaking or innovative processes used during completion of conducted work.
The judges have been asked to focus strongly on the complexity and strategic significance of work conducted.
The criteria underlines the importance of the recognition each firm is receiving based on being recognised as a Global 100 winning firm.
In summary, the Global 100 program provides a benchmark of the very best of the best industry leaders, exemplary teams and distinguished organisations.
It is a requirement for all our programs of recognition to receive no less than 21% in votes from the global readership, currently in excess of 293,000. This policy is applied to further endorse the worthiness of the awards presented and any marketing carried out as a result of the process.
Student Programmes Ireland Ltd was set up in 2009 by Bernie Carroll and her husband Joe following an increased demand for European Students to come to Ireland to improve their English Language Learning Skills.
The business has grown organically over the past 11 years and has been very successful and has won many awards which has given the company a competitive advantage over its competitors.
Like all companies, Student Programmes Ireland Ltd face unprecedented challenges precipitated by the Covid pandemic. “This time last year when Covid 19 hit Ireland we had to organize to get over 150 students back to their home countries in the space of a week and the past 12 months to say the least has been very challenging both on a personal and business level,” Bernie revealed.
“All the students we had booked for September 2020 cancelled within a week and then we really thought that the business was gone forever.
“But thankfully as the year went on we started getting enquiries for September 2020 mainly agents who were send students to America and their visas were cancelled so we were lucky to end up with over 70 students last September which was fantastic and we would like to acknowledge the support or our schools, host families and local coordinators who stepped up to the mark and helped us in every way they could to keep the business going for 2020.
Ms Carroll is optimistic about the current year. “Now we are looking at the coming year and still being in lock down we are not quite sure yet how the academic year 2021 will go but we are feeling a bit more positive this week after speaking to some ambassadors in other European Countries. They feel that Ireland will be ok this year for European Students simply due to the fact that the UK is now out of the European Union and more students will want to come to Ireland
“The most positive thing for me through the past twelve months was taking on a new staff member who has proved to be simply brilliant and I remember years ago being told on a business course always employ someone who is better than yourself and I was afraid to do that but now I know how true it is and highly recommended,” the Granagh native concluded.
Student Programmes Ireland Ltd has received many prestigious awards over the years and last week’s Global 100 sits comfortably with a string of previous recognitions including: Global CEO Excellence Awards – Best Student Education CEO 2020 (Republic Of Ireland), Accredited All Star Social Entrepreneur (Cultural Exchange) 2018, Winner of National Enterprise Awards Limerick 2017 Entrepreneur of the Year, Winner of National Enterprise Awards Limerick 2017 Best Service Business, Winner of Network Ireland Limerick 2017 Business Woman of the Year and Winner of JFC Innovation awards for Rural Business 2011
It speaks volumes for CEO Bernie Carroll and Students Programmes Ireland ltd that they can maintain such high standards in the face of an unprecedented challenges that the pandemic has brought.