The Canarian gazelle company is a unique species. It lives in a tourist ecosystem but does not feed on tourism. Not necessarily. What’s more, if there is something that characterizes it, it is its diversity, which is ultimately a contradiction. The fact is that among these businesses with high and rapid growth, both in terms of employment and turnover, there is everything, like in a pharmacy. Or almost. There are some restaurants and also some shops, but it would be much more worthwhile to guess that among the island’s gazelles there are also exotic specimens: a firm specialized in firefighting infrastructure, another that is responsible for passing the particular ITV on the hoses or tubes through which the fuels flow. on large ships, one more that is dedicated to the development of computer programs and applications for business management and another, for example, that knew how to see in the care economy a necessity that it has successfully turned into an opportunity. So a brief review of the unique herd of gazelles that inhabits the productive fabric of the Autonomous Community is enough to banish the idea that no steps have been taken towards the desired economic diversification. They have occurred even though they sometimes go unnoticed.
The studies and analysis of Spanish gazelles that are periodically published by entities such as Iberinform, the subsidiary of Crédito y Caución specialized in business information, or foundations such as Cotec, whose purpose is to promote innovation as engine of socioeconomic development, allow us to see the main characteristics of this type of business in the different autonomies. A work that, together with this newspaper’s own research, has allowed us to put the names of the twelve great gazelles on the table. Canary Islands, that is, the names of the twelve island companies that meet all the requirements of the most exact and restrictive definition of these firms: have ten or more employees, invoice more than half a million euros, have a minimum of three consecutive years with growth of the turnover greater than 20% and have a maximum of five years of life. In short, it is a series of business achievements that is not within the reach of the generality of newly created businesses. Far from it. That is why this dozen firms from the Archipelago are in some way an incentive for potential Canarian entrepreneurs, and also, it must be insisted, an example that there are opportunities beyond tourism. And if not, tell José Domingo González, manager of Transportes y Grúas Domer.
The case of this company based in the municipality of Icod de los Vinos, north of Tenerife, is a clear example of the extent to which gazelles can contribute to the creation of jobs. Transportes y Grúas Domer closed its first full year in 2019 – the firm was established in mid-2018 – and despite its still short existence, it can not only boast of being one of the largest island gazelles, but also, and what It is more important from a social perspective to have around a hundred workers on staff. To get an idea of how strange it is that a business in the Archipelago is capable of employing so many people, just remember that of the slightly less than 153,000 companies in the region, around 125,000 have a maximum of two employees. Furthermore: Domer has managed to enter the select club of firms in the Autonomous Community that have one hundred or more employees in less than five years. A club so select that it barely has 533 members, that is, a very small 0.35% of the business fabric of the Islands. It is therefore not surprising that the firm led by Domingo González has the largest park of industrial machinery in the northern region of Tenerife, one of the largest in the Archipelago. In fact, Transportes y Grúas Domer also provides excavation services, waste management – rubble trays – or scaffolding, for example. So González, a member of a humble family dedicated to livestock farming who was drawn to the world of trucks since he was a child – “I always liked them” – has managed to build, with the invaluable support of his wife – something that is strives to make it clear – a gazelle that, due to its size, looks more like a giant eland, the largest of the antelopes that live in Africa. The key to such rapid success? The manager of Transport and Cranes Domer is clear: “Consistency, work… And also getting a mortgage,” he notes half jokingly, half seriously.
Another of the rare birds of this island herd of gazelles is Tess Hose Management Operations Canarias, Tess Canarias. More than twenty employees and about five million average annual turnover illustrate the dizzying growth of a firm that is responsible for providing a service that is as fundamental as it is ignored by the average person: the inspection of the hoses through which the fuel flows. on ships. The strict tests and verifications that Tess Canarias carries out in its facilities in the Port of Lightin Gran Canariathey not only allow these infrastructures, these tubes, to be kept in perfect condition, but what is more important: they thus avoid the spills into the sea that would occur if all those hoses that do not pass the quality controls to which the technicians subject them Tess were still active.
More orthodox, so to speak, are the activities to which four other gazelles of the Archipelago are dedicated. Bollullo Beach is the limited company that operates the eponymous restaurant located on Bollullo beach, in La Orotava. And the also limited Blangonal is the entity that manages the Rock Café located in the tourist town of Corralejoin Fuerteventura. Blangonal and Eliteplac SL are among the twelve gazelles in the Autonomous Community that are not in Tenerife or Gran Canaria, that is, they are not in the capital islands. Eliteplac is in Lanzarote and it specializes in work with plasterboard and plaster, it employs about 60 people, both permanent and temporary, and only between 2020 and 2021 – the last year with definitive figures – it increased its turnover by up to 25%. And more classic or common is also the activity of Comercial M&M San Benito La Laguna SL, which is the company that, among other activities, runs the multi-store of the same name, dedicated to the sale of food and beverage products, which is located in Exit the university city through the roundabout on the TF-152 highway.
In San Cristobal The headquarters of Luxury Care, another of our gazelles, is also located in La Laguna. With a young team at the helm and under the direction of Alejandro Quijada, the company is one of the main representatives of the care economy sector in the Canary Islands. The firm manages three senior centers in the north of Tenerife and as many day centers. With the motto and slogan of always providing Luxury Care, Luxury Care has positioned itself as one of the references in its field despite its still short life – the legal entity was established in February 2018. In 2022 it already had close to fifty employees, and its sales volume increased by 60% between 2020 and 2021 and almost 36% between 2021 and 2022. Numbers behind which appears, in the words of its director, “a great “family dedicated to caring with great care and love.”
There are also Canary gazelles in the technology and information technology sectors. There are great exponents of Conecta Software, specialized in the development of programs aimed at better business management, and Brookei Technology, also from Tenerife, founded at the beginning of 2018 and which already operates nationwide. Brookei provides services such as installation of fiber optic cabling in companies, telephone equipment and systems, and uninterruptible power supplies. It also handles the installation and maintenance of solar panels, among other tasks. This technological gazelle of island origin has done so well that its sales volume grew by a whopping 65% from 2020 to 2021, an extraordinary increase that, however, remained small in 2022, a year in which its turnover was shot up to 129%. Conecta Software employs around twenty professionals, a figure that also includes Brookei Technology’s staff.
Without leaving Tenerife you can still see one more specimen of gazelle: Oceans Canarias 2018, which operates in the real estate sector. Although this is an activity in which the turnover fluctuates to a greater extent than in other branches – the slowdown of a project can ruin the turnover of one year to increase it the next -, it is still surprising that the sales volume of Oceans The Canary Islands will grow by an outstanding 252% in 2022 – the last year with available data. With more than 20 workers, this construction company based in Arona, in the south of the island, provides a premium service, as it accompanies its clients from the initial idea, from when they imagine their perfect house, whether to invest or reside, until the project delivery.
And from Tenerife to Gran Canaria, where the last two gazelles on this list of the twelve most recent examples are. General Services Canservi, located in the capital, is dedicated to just that, to provide general services: reception, concierge, access control, valet parking, cleaning… For this it has almost fifty employees. Lastly, in Telde There is SPS Contraincendios, another limited company with 40 workers who are in charge, among other tasks, of designing fire prevention plans and installing and maintaining the equipment to implement it. Telecommunications and low-voltage installations are also among the activities offered by a business that in the last two years – 2021 and 2022 – increased its turnover by an average of 40%.
