LBB Purple Secure Systems: simple but effective vision

The great thing about LBB Purple Secure Systems is that its business model allows it to grow even during times of downturn in the IT industry. David Harris, the company’s MD, co-founded the company eight years ago. Having previously worked for IPL, he spotted a gap in the UK government and defence sector, which he identified often experienced a lack of capacity due to the ups and downs in demand for software and systems engineering expertise. Purple Secure Systems was established to fill that gap, offering both the capacity and the capability for their clients to deliver projects more effectively. Harris brings the IT systems and software sales and marketing experience from the MoD and Government sectors. While the company’s Technical Director, Jez Williams, brings IT engineering experience.

The vision from the outset was simple: to be “the best employer in (its) sector and (its) clients’ preferred supplier”. By taking that stance, the idea was that the business would almost build itself. Recruitment and training are key to the company’s success; Purple employs graduates, often from ‘Russell Group’ universities with degrees/masters/PhDs in Maths, Physics or Software Engineering. It is a very similar philosophy to that adopted by Detica in its early days. The philosophy is critical to National Security challenges because the application of technologies in areas such as Intelligence, Big Data and Cyber are constantly changing; the engineers taking on those challenges need the ability to learn and produce results very quickly. Also noteworthy is the investment that Purple has made in developing its agile software development methodology for software engineering.

So far so good; Purple has achieved growth of between 15% and 40% in each of the last four years. And it expects growth of close to 30% in the current financial year. Indeed that growth could be far superseded if one particular major strategic bid is successful. Moreover there are opportunities to move into adjacent markets, for example, cyber security or mobile applications development. So far sticking to the vision is delivering results.

Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '07:00' - Tagged: defence   lbb   government