Search through our UKHotViews and UKHotViewExtra articles plus complete research reports
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can read our succinct year-end review of venture capital investment in UK software and IT services companies in the latest edition of IndustryViews Venture Capital.
Besides key stats on VC investment last year, we also highlight some of the more interesting deals completed in Q4.
Plus we have an interview with Jon Coker and Rory Stirling, investment directors at MMC Ventures, active investors in the UK tech VC scene.
If you have skin in the game and want to venture into our world, contact Deb Seth on our client services team who will be pleased to explain how you can capitalise on our research.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:24' - Tagged: venturecapital
One of the ‘Malvern cyber security cluster’ of SMEs, Deep-Secure has its roots in Clearswift Group, where it was the Specialist Products division and was the subject of a Management Buy-Out in 2009. The company develops high assurance information security software-based products (a family of ‘Guards’) to its core markets of UK defence, UK government and NATO, where organisations have to exchange and share sensitive data between varying security domains. The current team of 27 people, including CTO Simon Wiseman, have worked in the defence technology & security sector for many years – many formerly with QinetiQ.
CEO Robin King highlights the company’s UK sovereignty, the ease with which customers can do business with the company, and the ability for the products to be consumed in a flexible and adaptive way. The message appears to be meeting with approval from partners; the list of Deep-Secure’s IT services companies is noteworthy, including BAE Systems, Fujitsu, Logica, HP, Cassidian, Thales, Serco and Capita.
Now Deep-Secure aims to move into sectors where there is a requirement for secure data sharing between organisations such as local government, health, finance and critical national infrastructure, both in the UK and internationally. The intention is also to broaden the product set to include other methods of communication such as instant messaging, voice and video and industrial process control protocols. The challenge will be convincing organisations outside of the defence & intelligence sectors that their current idea of ‘secure’ is, according to Deep-Secure, anything but.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '08:00' - Tagged: publicsector defence software lbb security
Ospero was founded in 2011 by CEO, Jason Currill - and he is thinking big. The firm describes itself as a “global Cloud utility company”, based on its key offerings: vGrid and vPlatform. vGrid is based on VCE’s Vblock cloud infrastructure. Ospero manages a network of 23 data centres across Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific, offering hosting and infrastructure-as-a-service. vPlatform is a way for customers to manage internal and external clouds for development and testing. The platform has connectors to Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Fujitsu, GoGrid and Savvis.
Partnerships are central to the way Ospero operates. Colt, Verizon and SingTel infrastructure underpins vGrid, while its relationship with EMC is proving to be critical to helping Ospero offer flexible payment and consumption models for its 'storage as a service' proposition. But as a minnow amongst a number of much larger fish, Ospero will have to swim fast and smart to ensure it doesn’t get caught before it has a chance to grow.
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '07:58' - Tagged: lbb
Bristol and Belfast-based Automated Intelligence has been in business for less than three years but has a client list and product portfolio many larger and longer established vendors would envy - and a presence across the UK public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
It is in the business of lifecycle data management, specifically extending Microsoft SharePoint. While that gives it access to a ready market, there is always the risk Microsoft will extend into its space. To combat that eventuality it is powering ahead with a product set that covers unstructured data analysis; automated data classification, archival and retrieval; and information governance and compliance. The value proposition is dropping the cost of storing and managing unstructured data (potentially from c£20K/TB to c£4K/TB), which is particularly timely in the emerging era of big data, where the cost of managing assets is the elephant in the room.
With a background in enterprise content management (most recently with Meridio which was acquired by Autonomy), founders Mark Godfrey (CEO) and Simon Cole (CTO) have hooked into new requirements for unstructured data management and mobile capabilities, with an emphasis on automation to promote ease of use and cost reduction. This LBB is competing against big software and services providers – and winning.
Posted by Angela Eager at '08:11' - Tagged: software lbb
Start-up NeutrinoBI only launched its software in the market around 18 months ago but it’s already proving to be aptly named. It’s growing rapidly in the UK and internationally - although we concede not quite at the speed of light - with ambitious plans to be a Top 5 player in the global BI ‘data discovery’ tool market by 2017.
If things go as well as CEO Jon Woodward and Chairman Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham hope, NeutrinoBI will triple in size over the next 12-24 months, albeit from a very low base of course. Its expansion plans include moving into the US market this year, other English speaking countries (e.g. Asia Pac) in 2014 and taking on ‘the rest of the world’ from 2015. It’s early days and these plans are nothing if not ambitious, but this Birmingham-based ‘Little British Battler’ already has a pretty impressive track record and appears to be punching well above its weight in competitive markets.
What is it that sets NeutrinoBI apart from rival data discovery solutions? The answer appears to lie in its natural language search technology, the way its data discovery tool works to visualise data from existing data warehouses and rapid data mapping, which reportedly cuts implementation times from three months to one week. As a result, NeutrinoBI has attracted top-notch partners such as Teradata, Kognitio and CWW (now part of Vodafone) and signed clients in the retail, finance and education sectors. But whilst the evidence suggests that this LBB is definitely ‘one to watch’ in the months ahead, we fear it may well be a ‘little US-headquartered battler’ before the year is out. The management team is in the process of securing funding to open a US head office later this year in a bid to crack the US market and compete with the leading global BI firms on their own turf.
Posted by Tola Sargeant at '07:00' - Tagged: software lbb fundraising BI
Private equity-backed Valueworks is a SaaS provider of e-procurement and B2B marketplaces, specifically focused on the UK social housing and private construction sectors.
The ten-year old company has been growing at a rapid rate and was acquired by PE provider Hg Capital in October 2012. Elizabeth Sipiere, formerly Microgen’s divisional MD for EMEA and APAC, joined to head up the business during the buy-out. Founders Jeff Dandridge and Iain Walsh however, who launched Valueworks after leaving CPG giant Danone, are still heavily involved providing strategy and commercial leadership. Under this new management, Valueworks is now targeting its next phase of growth.
What impressed us most about Valueworks is its focus. In a market where there are many generic e-procurement providers focused on indirect procurement of items such as consumables and office supplies, Valueworks’ detailed knowledge of the UK social housing and construction markets helps differentiate it, enabling it to source more strategic items for its clients, such as building materials and other trade items incorporating regional suppliers. Another plus is Valueworks’ platform technology, which the company has built from the ground up, using both in house and offshore resources, offering catalogue management, an e-marketplace and a purchase to pay back end all delivered via the cloud.
Challenges however do lie ahead. Meeting the demands of its new PE owners to expand and broaden scope will need to be done sensibly without losing sight of its core ‘knitting’. If Valueworks gets this right, the future looks bright.
Posted by John O'Brien at '08:41' - Tagged: saas eprocurement
This week we publish short pieces on six more Little British Battler (LBB) software and IT services companies whose CEOs came to talk to us about their companies, products and services, aspirations and challenges (see Calling all ‘Little British Battlers’!).
Only eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients will be privy to our more detailed analysis of all 12 LBBs in our forthcoming research report. Do contact Deb Seth on our client services team if you would like to learn more.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:17' - Tagged: lbb
We strayed somewhat from our traditional software and IT services brief to invite the top team at London-headquartered Concirrus to our Little British Battler day (see here) – especially given that the company was only born in June last year. But – and perhaps surprisingly – they were the only company amongst the 100 or so applying to participate that had the ‘internet of things’ as their raison d’etre. And we believe in the internet of things.
Concirrus is best described as a turnkey provider of internet-based machine-to-machine systems. They cover the whole gamut, including solution design, (contract) hardware manufacture, application development, network connectivity, right through to hosting the back-end software (via Amazon Web Services).
The founding co-owners – CEO Andy Yeoman and COO Craig Hollingworth – both have relevant pedigree (Yeoman at Trimble, Hollingworth at O2, Telefonica et al), and self-fund the business. A cash-free ‘reversal’ into electronic component distributor Alpha Micro Systems provided access to the hardware supply chain.
At its ‘base’, Concirrus is all about remote monitoring and measurement. But at its ‘peak’ is the analysis of all the data that streams in from connected devices. It is exciting to find all of this in a single ‘package’.
Posted by Anthony Miller at '06:00' - Tagged: lbb m2m iot
EMC is by heritage a company that provides storage products and solutions (hardware, software and services). However, it now positions itself at the intersection of three important technology areas: Cloud, Big Data and Trust (i.e. security). In this CompanyViews, we explain the company’s position in the UK market and some of the activities it is undertaking to ensure revenue growth. Subscribers can read the piece in full here.
If you do not yet subscribe to TechMarketView’s hugely popular InfrastructureViews research stream and would like to know more, please contact Deb Seth (dseth@techmarketview.com).
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '18:04' - Tagged: cloud security bigdata storage channel
The UK IT support services market is led by a small number of larger players, including Computacenter and Phoenix. However, it is an industry that is characterised by its ‘long tail’ of smaller providers with a diverse range of capabilities and financial performances. In this CompanyViews we look at A&O IT Group. While you might not know the name, you might be familiar with its component parts. It is the combined businesses of Logistics International and EDS Global Field Services and was founded in 2011. We assess A&O’s prospects for 2013 in a market that is still not growing. Subscribers can read the note in full here.
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '08:41' - Tagged: supportservices fieldengineering desktop
Founded by CEO, Gavin Russell, Wavex is projecting healthy revenue growth and impressive bottom line expansion. The company provides SME customers (typically with 10 to 500 users) with a range of IT services including IT support, monitoring services and hosting. Indeed, for the vast majority of its customers it is the key technology provider. It also partners with a range of hosting firms, providing a managed service ‘wrap’ to end customers.
Wavex is able to differentiate itself from some other suppliers of a similar size with its platform for monitoring KPIs such as SLA performance, service desk performance and user satisfaction. A nice touch is that positive feedback collected by the system is used to boost engineers’ bonuses where appropriate.
Like many IT services firms we talk to (large and small), Wavex faces a challenge around marketing its brand. Russell acknowledges that the firm is still “working this out". However, we think there are certainly worse problems to have.
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '08:39' - Tagged: supportservices
Little British Battler Covalent Software, which offers an integrated suite of 13 hosted applications grouped by two ‘bundles’ with a focus on ‘Specialist Performance Management’ and ‘Governance, Regulation & Compliance (GRC), has been around for ten years now. Its founder and CEO, Peter McHugh established the Taunton-headquartered business and has grown the company with limited external funding. Today, it has 40 staff, including a senior management team that has grown up with the company, and boasts more than 200 customers (and 32K individual users), predominantly in the UK public sector.
Covalent’s win rate in its core markets – local authorities and housing associations - is impressive. Last year it won two thirds of deals pursued, only losing out on one local authority contract. Clients will usually be looking to replace a host of spreadsheets and databases. The strategy is to “land and expand”. In its core markets, McHugh sees more opportunities to oust competitors. Across the rest of the public sector, he sees the biggest growth potential in the health sector as multiple newly formed organisations wrestle with regulatory demands. In all cases, the ‘expand’ will involve up-selling other applications from the suite. With limited resources, one might think that was enough to be going on with but McHugh has further ambitions: to target the private sector as well as international markets via alliances with the major software vendors.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '08:00' - Tagged: saas software lbb
Leeds-based Science Warehouse is rather like ‘an Amazon for business’ and its cloud-based procurement software and data management service is hitting the right note as organisations look to tighten up their procurement in ‘the age of austerity’. This Little British Battler is profitable and growing strongly as a result with revenues up 25% over the last year.
Science Warehouse provides a secure private marketplace tailored to customer needs with an online catalogue of more than eight million items. Its offering particularly appeals to decentralised organisations managing technical expenditure, such as universities and health trusts. But it’s data quality and data management capabilities that set Science Warehouse apart from competitors, which include ERP giants SAP and Oracle and global spend management firms like Ariba.
Better data enables accurate price comparison and benchmarking in real time, improving an organisation’s ability to manage its spending and make better procurement decisions. The results, according to MD Steve Kerridge, are demonstrable savings and a ROI of less than six months. With cost cutting still the main driver for procurement functions, it’s easy to foresee further growth for Science Warehouse over the coming months.
Posted by Tola Sargeant at '09:04' - Tagged: software procurement
Looking at the state of the high street you would not have high hopes for retail-specific software providers - but performance is why Merseyside-based Cybertill stands out. This profitable vendor is racking up new business on a month by month basis, adding to a customer list that already contains a host of well-known names in the commercial and not-for profit (NFP) sectors.
Success stems from its scalable SaaS-based multi-channel EPoS (electronic point of sale), online and telephone retail solution that provides a live view of stock and customers across all sites/channels, and is topped off by an ecommerce facility. The company is doing particularly well in the NFP sector - founder and chief executive Ian Tomlinson says it has already captured a sizable chunk of the market and is set to secure more. Cybertill is neatly positioned – it can battle it out with providers like Micros Torex and K3 in the commercial sector - and scoop up NFP sector customers.
There are some hurdles looming. Its proposed move into the US market will be challenging and it needs to decide when to move from its current licence model to a subscription basis without overly damaging its profitability. But its strong base and growing reputation will help this Little British Battler on its way.
Posted by Angela Eager at '08:51' - Tagged: software lbb
As Tom Bausemer puts it, “People need engineers where they don’t want to send engineers to!” Bausemer is Managing Director of Chiswick-based channel-only IT and support services firm OrderWork. The company has some 600 engineers on its books who can be deployed on a short-term or long-term basis anywhere in the UK. OrderWork operates exclusively on a ‘white label’ basis through high profile value-added resellers and systems integrators, as well as High Street brand name consumer and electronics retailers.
There is a well-established market for channel-only support services. Many VARs and Sis – particularly in the mid-market – just don’t have the scale or coverage to provide ‘desk-side’ services to clients spread around the country. OrderWork’s flexible workforce model suits this market well.
Bausemer has ambitious plans to boost OrderWork’s client base over the next couple of years, but recognises that with fast growth comes the challenge of maintaining service quality and improving profitability.
Posted by Anthony Miller at '08:33' - Tagged: lbb
…That’s the phrase CEO Gordon Cooper uses to describe VisionWare’s master data management (MDM) software. Using technology to model, manage and govern operational master data, VisionWare’s ambition is to help its customers arrive at a 'single version of the truth', which they can use to build a clean system of record. In so doing, VisionWare hits many of our big themes, across big data, analytics and cloud.
We were particularly impressed by VisionWare’s ability to punch above its weight in the UK public sector, competing against industry giants like IBM and Oracle. It has also managed to secure big name system integrators and outsourcers as partners, in both the UK and the US – that’s quite an achievement given their size. On the back of that, VisionWare is now making headway in the US local government sector too.
Looking ahead, VisionWare's new Auris product will target opportunities around Microsoft Dynamics CRM as it broadens its focus into the front office and public sector hot spots such as fraud and debt management and untapped areas like social care. With such a large market opportunity out there, one of VisionWare’s challenges will be where to specialise and focus management attention to grow both visibility and market share.
Posted by John O'Brien at '08:27' - Tagged: publicsector software analytics bigdata
We are delighted to announce new website features exclusively for TechMarketView subscription service clients.
From today, clients will be able to select UKHotViews and UKHotViews Extra articles for printing by clicking on the ‘Add to Print List’ icon at the top right-hand side of each post. When you are ready to print, simply click the View Print List icon just below the blue main menu bar and print away! You may print the selected posts on a continuous run, or one per page.
There are also improvements in search usability which we are sure you will find helpful.
If you have any questions about the new functionality or on any aspect of website usage or our research, please drop an email to info@techmarketview.com.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:56'
Capita’s purchase of Northgate Managed Services (NMS) last week (see Capita acquires Northgate Managed Services at knock-down price) left us with plenty of questions as to what the deal means for the future of Northgate and its other two divisions Northgate Public Services (NPS) and Northgate Arinso (NGA) now that one of its three core divisions has been cast off.
As for Capita, the deal begs many questions about its strategy in IT services, and what it wants to achieve with this additional capability. Organisationally we think Capita faces its biggest challenge however as it struggles to articulate how NMS and other M&A ‘fit’ its core in business process services.
Subscribers to TechMarketView's Foundation Service and BusinessProcessViews research can read the analysis and implications for both players here.
Posted by John O'Brien at '07:34' - Tagged: acquisition bps itservices M&A
We are both proud and privileged to have hosted CEOs from twelve of the UK’s up and coming software and IT services companies yesterday at the second Little British Battler day.
The companies covered the full gamut of ‘hot topics’ including big data, business analytics, e-commerce, infrastructure as a service, and ‘the internet of things’ (machine-to-machine communication) as well as innovative twists to more traditional IT services.
You will be able to see snippets about these companies over the next couple of weeks here in UKHotViews, but you’ll need to be an eligible TechMarketView subscription service client to see the ‘full monty’ Little British Battler report due to be published in March. Do contact Deb Seth if you would like to learn more.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:18' - Tagged: lbb
Today’s the day that CEOs from twelve Little British Battler software and IT services companies come to London to meet the entire TechMarketView research team (see Calling all ‘Little British Battlers’!).
So please forgive us that today’s UKHotViews will be very short and sweet, but you can be sure that ‘normal service’ will be resumed tomorrow.
And of course you will be able to hear about the ‘LBB 12’ on UKHotViews in brief, while eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients will get to see the ‘full monty’ in a forthcoming research report. Do contact Deb Seth if you would like to learn more.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:31' - Tagged: lbb
Capita’s win at Carphone Warehouse (see Capita rings £160m deal at Carphone Warehouse) is just one of a number of customer contact deals we have seen recently in the UK. Last year Serco signed big deals with Shop Direct and Freeman Grattan Holdings, and last December, US-based pure play Sitel won a deal with airline Flybe, which saw it take on Flybe’s existing customer service agents in Exeter.
The common factor with these deals is that they are all with consumer-focused service organisations. This is an area facing intense competition and downward pressure on prices from an ever more internet savvy consumer. It is unsurprising that these organisations are looking at outsourcing more of their non-core activities. What is particularly interesting is that it is the customer services function, which appears to be the first to go.
Subscribers to TechMarketView's Foundation Service can read the analysis in UK HotViewsExtra here.
Posted by John O'Brien at '15:55' - Tagged: bps contactcentre customerservice
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can download the latest edition of IndustryViews Corporate Activity to see our annual review of corporate activity in the UK software and IT services market in 2012.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:02'
Despite January's cold snap, TechMarketView analysts produced another hot set of research. Our research directors followed up on their 2013 Predictions with ‘deeper dive’ analyses into the implications for UK infrastructure services (see InfrastructureViews), enterprise software and application services (see ESASViews) and business process services (see BusinessProcessViews) markets and suppliers.
Subscribers to PublicSectorViews meanwhile, can now access the latest 'must-read' report from Georgina O’Toole and Tola Sargeant UK SITS Supplier Landscape 2012-13, which reviews the recent fortunes of the key suppliers to the UK public sector software and IT services market, providing views on the performance of the Top 20 suppliers in 2012 and looking forward to what might happen in 2013 and beyond.
Foundation Service subscribers will also be able to read IndustryViews Quoted Sector Review 2012, which gives our analysis of the stock performance of UK-listed software and IT services companies during 2012.
We announced the line-up of 12 ‘Little British Battlers’ for our second LBB event on 12th February (see here). 100 companies applied to participate in the event and once again we aimed to select a broad mix of small, privately-held software and IT services companies that are playing to some of the big ‘themes’ driving the UK IT market, including mobile internet, BYOT (Buy Your Own Technology), Big Data, and of course Cloud computing. Foundation Service subscribers will be able to read our analysis of these LBBs in due course.
Again TechMarketView analysts have been widely quoted in the press. Computerworld picked up Georgina and Tola’s perspectives on the strained relationship between SITS suppliers and the UK public sector; chairman Richard Holway was mentioned in InformationAge for his views on Dell’s pending buyout; ESAS research director Angela Eager was quoted in Computing for her views on Oracle’s real-time ERP investments; meanwhile Information Week turned to TMV for perspective on Oracle’s new $1.6bn deal with UK Government. Increasingly, TMV is being quoted further afield too. Managing partner Anthony Miller was quoted in India’s Livemint on Infosys’ ‘no bad’ news Q3; and we even spotted a mention in Focus Taiwan News on UK-Taiwan cloud computing opportunities.
If you’re tempted to read any of the research above but you’re not yet a fully paid-up subscriber, you’ll find details on all our research streams here. Deborah Seth will also be very happy to provide further information on subscribing, just drop an email to dseth@techmarketview.com.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:24' - Tagged: research
