Covalent: strong 'performance' in core markets

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