Published on the 21/01/2016 | Written by Beverley Head
Trialled with early adopters since 2015, listed Australian software and services business TechnologyOne has launched the fifth incarnation of its cloud platform which has been primed for scale…
TechnologyOne’s cloud has been developed to deliver scaleable software as a service solutions to its customers. It’s been a pricey strategy – but one that the company clearly believes will pay dividends long-term.
In its annual report released earlier this month the company noted that the TechnologyOne Cloud contributed a loss of A$2.5 million during the last financial year, expected to drop to a loss of $1 million during the current financial year – through anticipated increased demand and customers transitioning to the Cloud 5.0 architecture which it claims is ‘the most scalable version’ of the software yet.
Certainly the company continues to invest heavily in cloud with expenses related to cloud more than doubling during the last financial year to A$2.2 million. (It invests heavily in R&D generally – and this month committed to spending about 19 percent of revenues, or $41 million, on R&D this year.)
The annual report noted that cloud business has grown strongly with annual contract value reaching A$8million – 347 percent up on the previous year, though it is only fair to note that the company was relatively late to jump on the cloud bandwagon. It has made good progress however both in Australia and New Zealand, with Brisbane City Council, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Federal Treasury, Wellington City Council and Whangarei District Council embracing the approach.
According to executive chairman Adrian Di Marco all of the major wins for the company in the last year have been for Software as a Service. “Our cloud business is growing rapidly. This major uptake of the cloud by new and existing customers will see us continue to double this every year moving forward.”
Certainly investors seem to like the strategy as the company – though buffeted – seems to be emerging from Australia’s recent sharemarket rout reasonably unscathed. Yes, the share price has been affected, but the year on year trajectory is headed in the right direction.
Another trajectory that the firm has its sights on is adding some gender diversity to its all-male board. While the company has a stated commitment to gender diversity it has been male dominated both at the board and executive level. Currently seeking a couple of new independent directors, TechnologyOne has indicated a preference for at least one female to join the board in early 2016.
