Hoskyns at Sixty

Last night, with over 200 past employees, I attended Hoskyns’ 60th Birthday Party. John Hoskyns & Co was formed by Sir John Hoskyns and John Pearce in 1964.

I joined Hoskyns aged 21 in 1968 and (with a break when I setup SystemSolve) stayed to 1984 by which time I was Group Marketing Director.

Amazing to look back on the Hoskyns’ ‘firsts’ in those 20 years. See 1984 FT advert below.

• 1st multi user, real time commercial system in Europe with CentreFile in 1965
• 1st standard application packages for ICL in 1968
• In 1978 invents Segmented Level Programming
• 1st FM (now outsourcing) contract at Leyland Paints in Chorley in 1970
• Builds Europe’s largest real-time system at the Police National Computer Unit in 1970
• 1st provider of turnkey systems for DEC and HP ‘minis’ in 1974 and 1976 respectively. Becomes largest UK reseller for both
• Develops 1st micro based system for hotels in 1979 and became market leader
• Launches Hoskyns Business Centres in 1983 and becomes largest reseller of PCs to the corporate market.

In the first Holway Report in 1988, Hoskyns was the second largest provider of Software & IT Services (SITS) to the UK market – Logica was #1.

Hoskyns was also a ‘trailblazer’ for what was to befall the UK SITS sector. US Martin Marietta (MMDS) had acquired Hoskyns in 1975 when John left to join Margaret Thatcher’s think tank.

In December 1986, Hoskyns was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Geoff Unwin, who had been appointed CEO in 1984, had insisted that every single Hoskyns employee was listed in the prospectus.

In 1988, Plessey acquired the MMDS stake. So I was able to claim in the 1988 Holway Report that nine out of the top ten suppliers of SITS to the UK market were ‘UK owned and HQed’. Now it is the opposite way around. Only one is UK owned.

In 1989, GEC-Siemens acquired Plessey’s stake which, in 1990 was acquired by Cap Gemini and Hoskyns delisted in 1993.

Geoff Unwin was appointed as the first ever non-French person in charge of all their regional operations. The Hoskyns name was dropped in 1996. Geoff became CEO of Capgemini on the acquisition of E&Y’s consulting operations in 2000.

In the six years that Hoskyns was listed, its share price increased from 64p to 469p. Indeed, if they had retained their listing they would have got a Holway Boring Award for 10 years of uninterrupted EPS growth – a CAGR of 34%.

TechMarketView’s analysis shows that Capgemini is still the fifth largest supplier of SITS to the UK market, and other sources show it remains one of the largest suppliers in Europe.

Why has France managed to produce several top SITS companies but all the UK HQed leaders of the 1970/80s have ‘sold out’? Whether it matters is the subject of fierce debate. Personally, I think it does!

60 years on and Hoskyns can indeed look back on some fantastic ‘firsts’ but also perhaps a moment of reflection on what might have been.

Posted by: Richard Holway at 08:12

Tags: techhistory