Prima Software has recently announced news of a merger with Foresight Technology, and now plans develop its range of business intelligence and advanced reporting solutions for the reseller channel.
When Ian Buckley, chief executive of Prima Software, was looking at the possibility of taking on a business intelligence (BI) project late last year, he little suspected it would end up with the business merging with another company.
At the time and knowing that BI wasn’t part of Prima’s core expertise, Ian called Terry Thurgood, chief executive of Foresight Technology, and widely known in the industry as the go-to guru in this field, to see if he wanted to get involved in putting together a joint project.
“That was in December 2021,” remembers Ian. “We had a chat after Christmas and mulled over various options for the way forward, including setting up a shared company to provide the BI reporting. But the more we spoke and shared experiences about Prima and Foresight the more it made sense to go all in and become one company; we had similar aspirations and goals, and the merger was born from there.”
Terry adds: “Foresight had always been independent in the 12 years since I set it up and I wasn’t looking to merge with anyone else, but the more we looked at what we could achieve together, the more it made sense.”
Indeed, Terry says that it took longer to decide on the right time to merge the companies, how it would be done and what would happen afterwards than to decide to merge in the first place.
The businesses have many complementary qualities, but quite diverse customer bases – something that both businesses are keen to tap into going forwards. But Prima and Foresight were closely aligned on philosophies, as Terry explains: “We both have a great sense of fairness,” he says. “Also, with my background as a dealer for 25 years, I had a huge amount of empathy for dealers and I saw that in Prima too – they really care about their customers.
“There were a lot of similarities between the businesses – we both put customers first, respect them, endeavour to understand their problems and then try to give them solutions.
It was a very good fit; for me, it was largely a no-brainer to merge.”
That’s not to say Terry wasn’t cautious about entering into a deal. “I have merged companies before in a previous life and it hasn’t always worked out; it is not the easiest thing to do, you have to get the right blend of people. So I was cautious but it felt right to merge.”
The merger – Ian and Terry are keen to stress it wasn’t an acquisition, the deal is on equal terms – was announced in September, and both teams are now busy with the integration process and focusing on the future.
Customers of both businesses can expect continuity of their current services without disruption; all customers will receive the same products and levels of service that they had previously. The Foresight name is also being retained for the foreseeable future.
Looking forward
Now, Ian and Terry are focused on merging the business, but also developing new products. “We want to know what dealers want,” says Terry. “We are keen to listen to what the market is saying – there is no point arbitrarily putting out a load of BI products out there – we have great ideas but it has to be driven by the dealers. It is a rapidly changing market, and we want to listen to what they want so we can respond.”
To this end, Prima has organised a focus group comprising 20 of its top dealers for November to talk about BI and what their priorities are for it.
“It is such a powerful thing to be adding to the product range, we want to make sure we are getting it right with what dealers want,” says Ian. “The dealers need to be at the centre.”
BI covers a range of areas, but for many dealers, the priority is often on information they need to react to. “Simple things that they need to be aware of that can be brought to their attention quickly, and without too much noise so they can react and respond,” explains Terry. “For me, it is about dealers looking at the bigger picture and applying their limited amount of resources to what they can do and get the most benefit from.”
One feature that has recently been introduced is Targets, which gives users the ability to target just about anything within the business. “A popular feature targets an account manager or rep’s targets for a month and allows the user to constantly monitor how account managers are doing against those targets in real time. It sounds simple, but no other dealer system that we know of is doing that.
“There is so much that can be done with BI that is relatively easy, but I don’t see many dealers doing it. We put this information in front of them and it is there if they need it. They can see what all the customers have bought, or which haven’t been active this month. Those are the sort of things that make a big difference.
“I have lived the dealer lifestyle and sometimes you get so bogged down in running the business you don’t notice these things.
“I try to drive an emotional response with the BI I provide. I write reports and try to think of it from the end user point of view and put an emotional response in; for example, these are your new accounts that have gone dead. It creates an emotive thought – I have put all this work in to get that new account and I have now lost it. All of these insights needs to drive behaviour – if you have all this information and do nothing with it, you might as well not bother with it. If my report doesn’t drive behaviour, it isn’t written properly.”
Ian adds that Prima is also working on a new BI solution to replace its incumbent reporting system. “PrimaVantage will always be a premium bolt-on service because it drives growth, but there is also a need to have really strong analysis reports and business insights included, as standard, within the back-office reporting suite that facilitate operational efficiency,” he says. “For example, slow moving stock, what is tying up capital and valuable warehouse space, as well as what factors are potentially impacting the cost to serve.”
Exciting times
Along with merging the businesses and developing new products, Ian and Terry are focused on growing customer numbers. While Ian admits that economic circumstances have meant that dealers have held back on making big decisions, he hopes that the merger with Foresight and addition of their products will encourage dealers to make the switch to Prima.
“We reinvest 40% of our turnover directly into product development. It is a big investment and dealers are really starting to see the fruits of this with the frequent, customer-led enhancements to the product,” says Ian.
“Having worked with Terry, I knew that he was the very best person to deliver something special for our customers. We are delighted to have come to this arrangement with Terry.
“Prima Software now provides a feature-rich cloud ERP system, fully integrated e-commerce platform, an expansive marketplace data provision, and now, with Foresight on board, we aim to have the very best reporting suite. It really is exciting times for us and more importantly, our customers.”
