Bristol, UK, June 14, 2012 – UNIT4, the global business software group, today announced investment plans to establish an international centre of excellence for education software, based on its existing development operation in Swansea, Wales, UK. The centre will be responsible for the design, development and coordination of the delivery of its market leading education solution, based on the Agresso software suite that enables Education and Research institutions to achieve more success on an international stage.
With the current economic climate and a backdrop of cost cutting, Education institutions across the world are under more pressure to ensure high levels of student satisfaction and competitiveness on a global scale. Based on its established leadership position in Education in the UK and Scandinavia, and its emerging presence in the US and France, UNIT4 will develop a truly international, plug-and-play solution from existing best-of-class UNIT4 applications, all delivered on a common Agresso Platform. The core of this will be the existing Agresso Education product, an established leader in the market which was designed from the outset with a global market in mind.
“Competition for research funding is intensifying on an international basis and institutions have to compete more cost effectively and successfully for quality researchers and funding,” said Anwen Robinson, UK managing director at UNIT4. “Institutions in many countries are opening international campuses to provide globally coordinated learning and research centres. This is creating a huge worldwide market for a flexible, integrated Student, Human Resources, Business Engagement, Environmental Management, Research and Financial Management System capable of being delivered in a shared services model and in the cloud. Competitors are offering non-integrated, antiquated technology without the change agility our Platform provides.”
UNIT4’s UK subsidiary has become the international centre of excellence for the coordination and development of Education and Research solutions within UNIT4, working with a newly formed central management team under the guidance of UNIT4 COO Ab van Marion.
UNIT4 is a leading provider of enterprise software for Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC)™ and its products are designed to support post-implementation business change. Its advanced and proven Agresso Development Platform Framework will provide the architecture for the new solution used by more than two million users, offering flexible delivery options via on-premise, hosted delivery, shared services or in the cloud.
UNIT4 has been supplying business administration systems covering Finance, Students and HR to the Further Education and Higher Education markets since 1993, and now provides solutions to more than 250 customers across these sectors in the UK (75% market share) and more than 800 worldwide.
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About UNIT4
UNIT4 is a global cloud-focused business software and services company aimed at helping dynamic public sector and commercial services organisations to embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively in a market sector it calls 'Businesses Living IN Change' (BLINC)™. The Group incorporates a number of the world’s leading change embracing software brands including Agresso Business World, our flagship ERP suite for mid-sized services intensive organisations; Coda, our best-of-class financial management software; and FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company formed with investment from salesforce.com.
With operations in 17 European countries, as well as 7 countries across North America, Asia Pacific and Africa and sales activities in several other countries, revenue of €454.7 million was realized in 2011.
In the UK we focus strongly on the public sector, where we are the leading provider of ERP systems to local government and post 16 education organisations, as well as having a considerable presence in the emergency services and health sectors. We also focus strongly on professional services organisations and a range of commercial sectors including Financial Services, Retail and Media and Publishing. Overall we aim to be the UK’s foremost business software company, providing solutions that transform the delivery of public services and comprehensively support commercial organisations in their ability to adapt and prosper in rapidly changing environments.
UNIT4 is headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands and has over 4,000 employees. It is listed on Euronext Amsterdam by NYSE Euronext and is included in the Amsterdam Midcap Index (AMX). For more information on UNIT4 or any of its operating companies, please visit the website at www.unit4software.co.uk, follow us on Twitter @UNIT4_UK , or visit our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/UNIT4BusinessSoftwareNV
