EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

Update 1:

Source for above list is Sunday Times Rich List. Above is the online millionaire list. Freeserve was claimed to have sold for £1.6bn to Wanadoo. Only Peter Wilkinson’s name is mentioned. Where is Ajaz Ahmed and the other guys?

Sofware:

Graham Wylie made bulk of his money from Sage. Where is Michael Jackson from Sage?

I have not found a way to download the full list in one go. If you do manage, please send a copy my way.

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This was an unusual week of meeting successful people. Third was none other than Ajaz Ahmed. A Dixons store manager, who came up with the idea to set-up Freeserve. Here is a bit about Ajaz from http://www.e-consultancy.com (his story is well covered)

Ajaz Ahmed is the founder of Freeserve, the UK’s largest ISP, now owned by Wanadoo. His eureka moment came when he bought a PC at PC World in Leeds and nobody in the store could tell him how to get onto the Internet. After much persuasion by him, Dixons launched Freeserve in September 1998 and became the UK’s largest ISP in just three short months. It floated just nine months later at a market cap of £1.5bn and entered the FT 100 soon after, in March 2000 it had a market cap of £9bn.

Ajaz was one of the three founding executives to launch the business, seeing it through flotation and the £1.6bn sale to Wanadoo. Ajaz held the position of Business Development Director until April 2001 when he left the company to pursue a variety of business interests. He now sits a number of boards and is CEO of Callserve, Europe’s Largest VoIP Company.

Recently Ajaz brought Browzar to market. Whilst the business case is simple to understand, I am not yet convinced majority of us will shift to Browzar from IE7, Mozilla Firefox and others. However, if it develops into a functionality rich web browser, then the take up will be different. Over 200,000 people from 192 countries have downloaded the software within few days of release. The story also captured huge media attention. Obviously, Ajaz would not have associated his name with the company if he thought the market potential was limited.

According to FAME database, Ajaz is involved with the following companies, most being start-ups:

1. Channel 6 Internet Ltd
2. Channel 6 Online Ltd
3. C3i Ltd
4. Tiva Services Ltd
5. Rifle Fields Developments Ltd
6. Browzar Ltd
7. Zest Media Ltd
8. Callserve Communications Ltd (2004 revenues: £9.1m)

Tiva is of particular interest to ebdex from partnering perspective.

Mark R, thank you for introducing me to Ajaz. Having e-mailed Ajaz, I was surprised when he responded with a kind message. It took me another e-mail to get his attention. We finally met. It took him a while to absorb ebdex’s proposition. Let’s see what happens at the second meeting.

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This week, I also had the privilege to meet another leader, Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash. Tom has done more than anyone else to regenerate Manchester and Liverpool over the last 15 years. He has won over 120 awards for architecture, regeneration and business success. It is amazing to see some of the regenerative work he has done - especially before and after effect. Some of his success is due to taking on projects that no one would touch and using young architects with new ideas to create magical transformations. His residential apartments usually get sold out within couple of hours, and people usually camp out before the doors are opened. A rare breed indeed!

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I finally had the pleasure to meet Gary Turner, MD of Pegasus this week. His business has changed hands twice over the last few months, first with Extensity and then with Infor. He has not only survived, but has positioned his company well within Infor creating further opportunities for growth. We spoke business for two hours and then spent the next hour speaking about blogging, hype of SaaS and other interesting issues over lunch.

He has been blogging for well over 5 years and have successfully managed to keep business out of his blog. A remarkable discipline. When it comes to ebdex, blogging forms part of our marketing strategy. A totally opposite approach to Gary’s. [DH, thanks for the introduction].

Gary is also a great photographer. You only need to look above to agree! Visit flickr to see other gems. 

So what business did we discuss? I am afraid you simply have to wait.

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According to Sam Sethi of TechCrunch UK, there are many opportunities for Internet start-ups and VCs to get together and share ideas in London.

I would love to find out of any similar events taking place in the North West. We have a monthly breakfast event at Daresbury Innovation Centre, but it is not dedicated to software. There is also a monthly Beermat Monday event taking place at Tiger Tiger, which mainly attracts consultants and life style businesses. N4B is similar.

Sam reports…

From the QnA session, the one thing I took away was the fact that VC’s are struggling to find start-ups to invest in. The point being that start-ups no longer need to raise the £1m+ previously needed in the web 1.0 period to get an idea up and running. Now £20-£40k gets you on the web and with actual subscribers/users to prove the model. In some cases the start-up can actually be profitable before they need to raise new growth capital. The thing that is still missing is the angel investment capital which Philip Wilkinson describes as the equity gap.

Interesting point about VCs struggling to find investments. We are not web 2.0 but SaaS and could do with between £1.5m over the next two years. However, if we win some decent sized clients, and provided we can work out decent advanced payments, we would not need any VC funding. Ironical, is it not?

We have continually been on catch 22 - chicken and egg situation with respect to VCs. Initially, we wanted external investment to develop our solution, but VCs wanted revenues - same as bankers - very risk averse in my opinion. So, we struggled for the last 18 months and now have the transaction hub (ebdex Document Exchange) up and running. We just need few decent sized clients and staying power.

Technorati Tags: Daresbury Innovation Centre, TechCrunch, Venture Capital, Equity Gap, Start-ups, ebdex, SaaS, Web 2.0

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I attended an IET event organised by the Manchester Branch on Automation Trends at Chancellors Hotel & Conference Centre this evening. It has been awhile since I attended an IEE event, and this was the first event I attended after IEE changed their name to IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) to reflect the importance of "Technology" in engineering. Catalyst for the name change was the merger of IEE with IIE on 31st March 2006.

Unfortunately, I missed the first half of the seminar given by Duncan Botting, Head of Technology at ABB on "automation in the energy sector", and Arthur Charlesworth, Validation Consultant at ABB on "setting the scene for automation trends". The second half was concluded by Steve Royston of Process Engineering at ABB, demonstrating "DCS and future trends". There were two other speakers: Paul Dubar of Jacobs Engineering (missed this one as well) on "the EPC prospective on control systems" and David Lovit, MD of Prospective Engineering on "advances solutions".

For those who does not know, I commenced my career as a control and instrumentation engineer and then as a SCADA engineer. So the topics covered were of familiar territory, and it was great to hear what the latest trends were. It seems that ABB and others have packed so much functionality into process controllers, that there is not much more they can do to improve the operations at the local processor level other than to miniaturise them . Instead, the concentration  is now on value addition through asset management and maintenance, and other advanced functionality. In addition, more and more systems are being integrated with ERP systems to provide management information as well as improve overall business effectivenes. This is the new frontier for automation product manufactures and solution providers as they are having to acquire new skills in order to retain any competitive advantage they have. In the short term (could well be for long term), this is addressed by teaming up with ERP specialists.

Now think about the following scenario:

1. The smart temperature transmitter detects signs of potential failure of some functionality in the very near future.
2. Through the 4-20 mA analogue channel, it reports the potential future failure to the local processor, perhaps over the HART protocol.
3. The local processor reports to the central system through SCADA.
4. Appropriate alarms are displayed on the GUI and maintenance crew is notified of the issue.
5. The Asset Management System reports this to the ERP.
6. ERP checks for spares and if sufficient spares are not in stock, starts placing an order for replacement parts
7. ERP generates the necessary paperwork and wait for typical paper based approvals, collection by royal mail, etc etc.

Up to item 6 can be automated by integrating various in-house systems. Beyond item 7, the company is having to interact with supplier(s). In most cases, the traditional paper based processes are followed. This can significantly delay response times and the benefits achieved by automating functionality within plant environment may now be lost when overall processes are taken into consideration.

Now think about this scenario (I am using ABB as an example - this can equally apply to Siemens, GE and others):

1. ABB wins a contract to equip a new plant with process control systems.
2. Client demands that their SAP is integrated with the process control system to feed senior management with vital information in addition to scheduling, inventory control and order processing.
3. ABB hires the company who maintain and support the SAP system to help them integrate ABB’s process control system.
4. ABB begins to work with ebdex at the same time to integrate SAP’s ordering and invoicing modules with suppliers systems through ebdex Document Exchange.

Now consider how powerful this integrated solution is. Other than the client, three companies are involved:

1. ABB are experts of process control.
2. The company who maintains and supports SAP system are experts of SAP systems
3. ebdex knows how to handle transactions (purchase to payment)

Will above not increase the competitive advantage ABB has even further? Can ABB achieve the same by undertaking all three? I doubt it. But they can manage the whole process as a turnkey contractor (ABB is good at this), and increase their margin for the extra risk they take by working with two other players. Isn’t this a WIN WIN for all parties? This shows that opportunities are endless. Its a matter of identifying one’s strengths and focusing on them to deliver a superior customer proposition.

Technorati Tags: ABB, SAP, IET, partnering, ebdex, ERP, asset management, DCS, SCADA, HART

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I have created a short movie clip to demonstrate Adding a New Job. Appreciate your feed back.

The following steps (in sequence) must be followed to Add a new Job. These steps are only applicable to the on-line service (i.e. before integrating your system).

Actual Steps (Sequence must be followed):

1. Login to your User Account

2. Select Jobs tab
3. Select Add New button
4. Add Name (batch number or suitable words to describe the Job)
5. Select Trading Partner from list.
6. Select Add.

Above steps will add a new Job, which you can use once or more. It can only be used with the Trading Partner selected.

Pre-Conditions:

1. The selected Trading Partner must have an active account.
2. You have declared your wish to exchange Structured Documents with selected Trading Partner.
3. The Trading Partner has declared his/her wish to exchange Structured Documents with you.
4. At least one of Trading Partner’s Account Users has the privileges to receive, approve and reject Structured Documents received from you.

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I just read an excellent article by Stowe Boyd about going solo and making a success out of it. And blogging is at the core of his success story. He split his time equally into (yes 1/3rd for each):

• Doing the work
• Marketing and networking
• Prospecting, contracts and cash flow

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Most of us do not fully appreciate the time and effort that goes to last two items. It makes one appreciate how little time is in fact spent on value creation (doing the work). What if we can somehow reduce the last two and increase first one. Would that not make the whole economy more prosperous. But by doing that, do we sacrifice the sales pipeline when the current works dries up? 

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It is well worth reading the article written by Matt Marshall of Venturebeat on the best time to raise Venture Capital (VC) funding. The article uses recent completion of $11m equity funding round by FreeWebs as a case study.

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Now imagine the followings:

• a place with a bigger economy than Denmark or Finland.
• has a population to be the 12th biggest state in USA.
• place where 75% of the UK’s top companies are based in
• place where over 100 of Fortune 500 companies are located
• produces 10.5% of UK GDP
• 8 universities
• 50,000 graduates a year

You may asked, where could that be? This is the North West of England, where ebdex is proud to be based!

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I received the following e-mail today from a competitor, which made me smile!

Did you know?

- The average time to process an invoice takes 27 days
- 12-14% of billing is believed to contain errors
- Missing bills lead to added costs and late payment penalties

According to recent research conducted, companies still receive over 80% paper invoices and entering those invoices manually is prone to delay and error.

I will also share some further statistics I have later on.

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Not sure what my daughters will say about daddy posting this, perhaps we should stick to using mobile phones instead of more creative methods of communication

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18YEHVvj3Dk&mode=related&search=]

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It seems that an Indian Delegation will be visiting us tomorrow.  Paul Treloar (above) who runs the Daresbury Innovation Centre has kindly invited me to meet them, which unfortunately clashes with another appointment. Most of these companies are looking for buyers and channel partners and interested in forming strategic alliances. It would be interesting to hear their thoughts on automating exchange of structured documents between companies.

I was first introduced to Paul in June 05, when I presented ebdex to Rising Star for funding, well before the first line of code was written. Paul willingly gave me a guided tour. We relocated in Feb 2006. Paul is a very busy person (like you and I are not!). His mission is to understand our needs and provide help as much as possible. He is also a man with extensive contacts.

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Yesterday, Mark and I visited a company to introduce ebdex Document Exchange. The company is a subsidiary of a FTSE250 plc with revenues of over £12m and 100 staff with number of city based offices operating predominantly in the UK. They operate in a growing sector with number of large incumbents. Whilst they have a large parent (over £700 m revenues), they operate as an independent, whilst their incumbents are small subsidiaries of very large corporations (almost institutions). The company has achieved significant growth over the last couple of years.

One of the things their CEO said stayed in my mind and I thought I will share it with you. He put down getting closer to customer as a key differentiator.

Our account manager, each look after about 25 clients, and they are small clients of each generating around £1m. Whereas the account managers of industry incumbents look after about 75 clients.

Without going into too much detail, getting closer to customer is crucial to any business. You need to identify customer pain before you can offer relief. And this company is doing it. And they have the potential to be one of the leading companies in their industry, as long as they can maintain this level of service. The incumbents have much more resources at their disposal, so why are they not allocating lesser clients for each account manager? Could this be a cultural issue? They are in a growth industry, therefore there is plenty of businesses to be had. The incumbents will only start noticing if their clients start to go elsewhere or their market share, revenues or profitability start dropping.

So, is incumbents’ strategy wrong? I do not think so. But if they pay bit more attention, perhaps their growth rates may start to look even rossier and thier dominance in the future may be secured.

Tags: Customer, Service, FTSE 250

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