Based in Bournemouth, the IRIS Accounting & Business Software division is part of the UK’s largest privately owned software business. Following a 2007 merger with the CS Group, IRIS has become the third fastest growing private equity-backed company, climbing to 21st place in the 2008 Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 League Table.
With annual revenues of more than £100m and 65,000 customers, IRIS has built up its reputation through understanding and serving the needs of customers in accountancy, law, construction, distribution, manufacturing and not-for-profit sectors. IRIS is committed to ensuring a positive customer experience and every member of the team demonstrates a real passion for their products. To find out more about all the other IRIS divisions and the systems and services they offer, visit www.iris.co.uk.
1986
Exchequer Software founded as one of the first vendors to bring a fully Windows-compatible accounts package to the UK market.1990s The company builds up a growing customer base and a strong reputation for technical quality. Within the world of mid-market accounting software, it pioneered the use of new concepts such as object-oriented design, multi-threading and the exchange of electronic documentation via eBIS-XML messages.
2005 The expanding IRIS Group acquires Exchequer Software. IRIS Chief Executive Martin Leuw says Exchequer's technical excellence was a major factor in the deal. The companies have technology and business cultures in common and strong positions in their respective markets. Bringing them together would create new opportunities to transfer expertise and link the application families.
2008 Now branded as IRIS Accounting & Business Solutions, the division continues to sell and support IRIS Exchequer to a customer base of more than 10,000 companies, including Marks and Spencer, GMTV, Thomas Pink, Michael Parker Homes, Hotel Chocolat and the British Gymnastics Association. The division is also responsible for developing, marketing and supporting GP Accounts, IRIS Accounts Office and IRIS Bookkeeping.
With so much change taking place within the organisation, this article is intended to take you behind the scenes to meet the people behind IRIS's Exchequer software range and to show how the company is evolving, while still retaining the technological drive and focus that has made it a consistent winner in innovation and product satisfaction award schemes.
Below, IRIS Accounting & Business Solutions executives Stuart Dawson and Paul Sparkes explain the group's accounting software strategy. Also see the related Behind the Scenes articles, Some key people and The User's View: Michael Morrison, Cresecent Lighting.
* * * Q: How does Accounting & Business Solutions fit into the IRIS group?
Q&A with IRIS Accounting & Business Solutions Managing Director Stuart Dawson and Product Director Paul Sparkes
Stuart Dawson:
The group's divisional structure means we can benefit from the resources and scale of a big organisation, but can still act quickly. We remain an inventive, flexible and responsive business and can afford to continue to develop specialist products for our customers in different sectors. Our new colleagues at CS Group are very happy with IRIS Exchequer - many of them are already familiar with the product and are already integrating it within their solutions for service management, professional services and not for profit organisations.
Paul Sparkes: IRIS has put their money where their mouth is. You can acquire all the companies you like, but if you do not invest in the products, all you're left with is a base of products that continues to erode over time. The investment has really started to come through in new launches and releases such as IRIS Exchequer version 6 and new CRM and forecasting modules. In the past few months we've been able to talk to clients about products that suit all facets of the organisation - a whole shebang solution. So we can talk to charities about fundraising and membership and so on.
A lot of software users have been burned when the products they bought have been discontinued. They're spending thousands of pounds and want to know you're going to be around. As a sector specialist, people can come to us and buy from a single, trusted supplier - we're now the UK's largest independent software house.
Q: Accountancy software is a very crowded market with a lot of functional overlaps between different systems. How do you differentiate IRIS Exchequer from its rivals?
Stuart: We don't have the profile of some of our larger competitors, but when we get in front of customers we do extremely well. The big ERP developers typically integrate products from several of their suppliers and you often end up with an OK generalist solution that covers the breadth of industry functionality, but not the whole depth. It's good, but never as good as a specialist application. That's why our industry focus is so important.
Paul: To differentiate yourself in this market is incredibly important - and it can be measured in customer loyalty, which is very important when you're competing against massive brands. IRIS Exchequer does not take the easy route and do "me too" software. For reporting, many of our competitors bought in a third party reporting tool. We did it ourselves to make it quicker and better for our users.
Another thing that differentiates IRIS Exchequer is that we still install the system ourselves as well as through resellers. That's what brings home the whole customer satisfaction issue for us. Companies that rely solely on resellers are divorced from their customers, so they don't feel the pain so directly. That helps us ensure the quality of our implementations and training methodology - and we can use this experience to make sure our resellers get their implementation strategy right.
Q: Aside from all this consolidation, what other changes are taking place within the business software market?
Paul: We're seeing more demanding users. We're getting third generation buyers in the market and they're more savvy. Sometimes they are less willing to accept deviations from what they want to achieve and they're more demanding in terms of functionality. They don't just want to see a demo of the purchase order module; they want references and will take them up. You're dealing with a much more educated customer - and that suits us.
Q: Is there a specific factor that influences people to buy IRIS Exchequer?
Paul: Management reporting is still the main driver of IRIS Exchequer sales, but the difficult thing is to find out what people understand management reporting to be. You need to understand the customers' DNA, what drives their organisations and what buying and sales trends are - for example, what stock will they need at what time? They all need business systems that can plug into their DNA sequence.
For most users, the big issue is getting their hands on more information in a digestible format to help them make decisions. And increasingly they need the information to be available in very many ways - such as on handheld devices in a remote working environment.
Stuart: The performance indicators that still matter most to us are customer satisfaction and retention - the most powerful selling tool you can have is happy customers. Most of our customers have been using IRIS Exchequer for 10 or more years. For them and us, it's a long-term relationship.
For more information about IRIS Exchequer and the activities of IRIS Accounting & Business Solutions, visit the company's Partner page on AccountingWEB.co.uk
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