In the Press October 2011
07 November 2011
Below are UNIT4’s UK press coverage highlights from October
UNIT4 joins Cloud Industry Forum - Global business software company becomes the latest organisation to endorse CIF and its Code of Practice
CIF
UNIT4, a leading provider of business software for Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC™), today announced it has joined the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF). UNIT4’s accreditation to CIF will provide its customers with additional reassurance that its cloud services meet the requirements of the Code of Practice implemented by the industry body.
UNIT4 has been at the forefront of cloud computing for many years. It became a majority investor in FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company, in 2008 and more recently announced VITA Cloud Angel™ and Coda Cloud Rebel™, cloud-based deployments of its flagship Agresso Business World ERP and Coda Financials software. The company’s newest offering, Shared Journey, is a cloud-based deployment option designed for organisations looking to set up a shared services operation that is quick to establish, easy to grow and responsive to change.
CIF requires members to demonstrate ethical and transparent delivery of hosted and cloud services. This means that commercial and public sector organisations, that are often under pressure to deliver flexible modern systems through cloud computing, can mitigate risk and make rational, informed decisions about the likely trading relationship they can expect with prospective vendors.
FinancialForce.com sees 500% growth
Accountancy Age
AN INTERNET SOFTWARE business has posted massive increases in monthly users in their latest financial results.
FinancialForce.com reported a 500% increase in monthly users compared with the same period last year.
The online software provider is part of UNIT4 which announced its third quarter results highlighting revenue across all its divisions had increased 3% to €102.5m (£89.53m), compared with the same period a year ago.
More than 53% of revenues across the group were recurring, with Germany, Scandinavia and Asia showing strong growth. The UK, Poland and Benelux performed in line with expectations.
Sponsor's Overview: Shared Services
PublicTechnology
Unfortunately, many public sector organisations have spent years growing lethargic and slow, lulled by ever-increasing budgets provided during the economic ‘good times’. For too long, many technology providers failed to focus on their customer’s best interests, preferring to milk the public sector cash cow by installing cumbersome software that requires so much investment that the CIO dare not replace it. The Gershon Review in 2004 recognised the importance of shared services and shaped the debate around how to achieve greater spending efficiencies, but did not convert the driving force into lasting change.
The situation has quite clearly changed; following the November Comprehensive Spending Review, there is now an imperative - the public sector must deliver the expected services levels to citizens at the minimum cost, and, as recommended by many in officialdom (most recently in the Cabinet Office’s central government whitepaper, Shared Services - Strategic Vision), shared services has a crucial role to play.
Software group’s vital role in helping to protect companies
Yorkshire Post
YORKSHIRE-based developers have played a key role in developing a software system that will protect some of the world’s biggest companies from fraudsters. UNIT4, the business software and services company, has launched a financial management software, Coda Financials – Destination: Control.
According to UNIT4, which has an office in Harrogate, the new software will help bosses to manage their risks and costs more efficiently.
As a result, they are less likely to fall victim to fraud.
The UNIT4 Group, which is based in Sliedrecht, in the Netherlands, has more than 4,000 staff.
David Turner, Group Marketing Director at UNIT4, said the new financial software would strengthen the company’s market position.
UNIT4 and Intelligent Capture launch Invoice4
FSN
UNIT4 this week announced the launch of Invoice4, a managed service solution powered by strategic partner Intelligent Capture, that it says allows organisations to receive 100 percent electronic purchase invoices direct into their UNIT4 Agresso Business World ERP or Coda Financials solution.
Invoice4 delivers electronic invoice information into UNIT4 solutions, irrespective of how the supplier has sent the invoice – paper, email, PDF, XML or EDI. Either received direct from an electronic source or through the introduction of a simple PO Box for paper-based invoices, UNIT4 says that Invoice4 has been designed to automatically extract and validate relevant invoice information for onward transmission to the UNIT4 solution. On receipt of the electronic transaction, the UNIT4 solution carries out automatic invoice matching and then, via a simple workflow, it routes the invoice for approval with immediate access to the scanned invoice.
Anwen Robinson, UK Managing Director for UNIT4, said: “The introduction of Invoice4 further strengthens and extends our Purchase-to-Pay capabilities and highlights UNIT4’s commitment to providing public and commercial sector organisations with a platform to drive process transformation through a simple transition to e-invoicing.”
UNIT4 partner to deliver Agresso ERP offering to six Norway municipalities
Computer Business Review
Business software provider UNIT4 said its partner, EDB ErgoGroup, has entered into an agreement with six municipalities in North Troms, a region of northern Norway, for the delivery of a new Agresso Business World ERP offering.
With the new offering, the municipalities, Kvænangen, Nordreisa, Skjervøy, Kåfjord, Storfjord and Karlsøy aim to derive quick and significant efficiencies through the sharing of back office systems and processes to manage finance, billing, payroll and personnel.
Shared Journey from UNIT4 enables them to benefit from single-instance, cloud-deployed Agresso Business World, while maintaining a level of independence and identity, without sacrificing the benefits for the group.
UNIT4 hits Q3 slowdown
TechMarkeyView
The start of UNIT4’s second half of the year compares unfavourably to the first with Q3 results showing just a 3% increase in revenue to Euro 102.5m and EBITDA up 2% to Euro 20.5m. No acquisitions impacted the Q3 figures so the 3% growth is organic and indicates the underlying performance of this company who is a quiet acquirer.
There is another quarter to go before a true H1/H2 comparison can be made but as H1 revenue was up 13% y-o-y, the company has a long way to go in the remaining three months to match it. Q3 is also down compared to the year ago quarter, which saw y-o-y revenue growth of 10%.
Public sector sales have been surprisingly good for UNIT4 in the UK (and Spain) over the past year or so but it looks like this line has slowed down. We are not surprised by that - we were surprised (and impressed) that UNIT4 was managing to secure public sector deals during a period of cost cutting. It did secure a subscription-based public sector deal in Germany however, which was interesting. It has snatched a few contracts from SAP so it could well have beaten SAP on this one.
Subscription revenues are reported as still growing strongly and recurring revenues (maintenance and subscriptions) are now at 53%. UNIT4’s Salesforce.com SaaS joint venture FinancialForce.com did better than expected delivering a growth in monthly run rate (September 2011 versus September 2010) of about 500%. Licence revenues are still growing however, particularly in Scandinavia, North America and Asia where growth was over 20%. The UK was in line with expectations – H1 was flat compared to the previous half year and in the absence of any other reference that could mean Q3 was essentially flat too.
The rest of H2 could perk up as end of year budgets get spent but we think H2 will remain a period of comparative low growth.
Shared Services Best Practice: NHS North Central London Procurement Co-operative
PublicTechnology
Shared services won’t work without the right systems, which is why a co-operative involving seven NHS organisations in north London binned paper-based procurement and switched to a single e-procurement solution.
NHS Camden Shared Procurement Service was able to improve its processes and save £2.7m in one year when it introduced an Amazon-style shopping site in 2009 that now handles 80% of purchases of items such as stationery, office machines, computers and cotton wool balls.
When Jeffry Nielsen, Head of NHS NCL (North Central London) Procurement Co-operative, arrived at the organisation it was struggling with a paper-based system that meant workers looking for a laptop might have to wait three months to get one.
“So far as cultural change is concerned it was interesting to watch,” says Nielsen. “There was no credibility in procurement.” Customer satisfaction ratings languished at 30% and buyers could choose from 5,000 items including luxury goods such as Waterman pens.
“As it stood, purchases were being made outside the procurement department and that led to disjointed purchasing with lost buying power from too broad a range of products and suppliers,” adds Nielsen.
“This resulted in reduced opportunities to consolidate demand, manage suppliers, rationalise products used and control usage by standardisation.”
Spend spend spend
The new e-procurement service, which is used by some 1500 buyers working in 200 different locations, is powered by UNIT4’s Agresso Business World Procurement Platform.
UNIT4 Collaboration profits up 41% in 2010
Extranet Evolution
The somewhat cautious outlook expressed by SaaS construction collaboration technology provider UNIT4 Collaboration Software a year ago appears to have been only partly justified. While it has yet to return to the £3m-plus turnover it enjoyed in the pre-financial crisis days of 2008, revenues for the year to 31 December 2010 were up 5% and it increased its profits by a healthy 41% – its fifth straight year of profit growth.
In 2010, UNIT4 Collaboration made a profit before tax of £379,755 (2009: £268,950) on a turnover of £2,988,770 (2009: £2,842,679). Nonetheless, for the third year running (and perhaps influenced by recent talk of a continued recession affecting the UK construction market), the directors give exactly the same future outlook: “The decline in the general economic climate has affected customers of the Company, particularly those in the building industry. The directors recognise that the Company is unlikely to deliver sustainable growth in the coming year but believe that the business outlook has stabilised and by focusing on customer care they are confident that current levels of activity can be maintained.”
In August, UNIT4 Collaboration MD Sanjeev Shah said the company “continues to make encouraging progress … are performing well and… have achieved our target for H1 2011.”
