In the year ending 31 December 2006, Styles & Woods’ StoreData division did not achieve the “penetration of new customers” that it planned but it apparently still achieved its annual targets, according its preliminary results released to the Stock Exchange today.
Engaged in bespoke development of the Union Square Workspace product (see last year’s posts Styles & Wood flotation and Styles&Wood – an update), StoreData competes in the UK construction collaboration market, focusing particularly on retail customers (the core market to which S&W targets most of its other services, dominated by its retail fit-out operations) to whom it offers:
“technology based property information solutions that store and communicate critical data relating to their store portfolio and associated property activity. This data can include design models, standards and specifications, asset registers as well as project specific data.”
In 2006, StoreData turnover reached £1.594m (£1.150m in 2005 – 38% growth), and generating an operating profit of £0.425m (£0.181m in 2005). These figures place it some distance behind established UK-based vendors such as my employer BIW, 4Projects and Business Collaborator (results published earlier this week – see: Business Collaborator grows in 2006).
On the division’s performance, S&W chief executive Neil Davies writes:
StoreData outperformed its Plan in 2006 although its penetration of new customers was slower than expected.
We extended the Tesco property data system known as My Property to over 6,000 licensed users to make this the largest system of its kind in the UK. During the year we added new functionality to the system and extended the range of properties we manage. We also implemented the system into Ireland with the prospect of wider international coverage now emerging. StoreData secured a new framework arrangement with Nationwide to develop and support a new Property Information System and for Barclays we created ‘Barclays on a Page’ which helps in the coordination of activities throughout their 1,600 branch network.
We anticipate continued progress for this business in 2007 as we are now confident in securing new customers who see the benefits, particularly cost related, that can be gained from efficient storage and management of property data.
It seems StoreData is persisting with its claim to have “the largest system of its kind in the UK”. Such claims require some knowledge of the extent to which systems have been deployed in other organisations’ supply chains – in the retail sector, for example, I know my employer BIW has large and mature communities of users within Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer, while Sarcophagus has also been working with Asda for some years. The BIW M&S system has over 8,000 registered users, comfortably eclipsing the StoreData/Tesco claim.
Incidentally, I wonder if the new StoreData framework arrangement with Nationwide involves the latter migrating away from Business Collaborator? Just a year ago (see: Harvard conference, March 2006 (4)), I saw a joint BC/Nationwide presentation (and met up with Nationwide’s Stephen Head and BC’s Tim Blower) in Boston.
Related post: Leading, largest, global – how do you measure it? (17 February 2007)
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[…] StoreData revenues for the six months ending 30 June 2007 were £618k (compared to £880k for the same period in 2006, ie: down 30%), delivering a profit of £74k (£175k in 2006, down 58%). It will have to improve its financial performance significantly in the second half of the year if it is to achieve the kind of turnover (£1.594m) and operating profit (£0.425m) it achieved in 2006 (see 2006: OK for StoreData). […]
[…] The turnover figure places Asite some distance behind other UK construction collaboration vendors such as BIW Technologies (my employer; last FY: £4.66m), 4Projects (I recently guess-timated a last FY turnover of £3.4m), BuildOnline UK (now part of CTSpace (£2.793m – see post), and Business Collaborator (£2.35m). It even puts Asite behind relative newcomer, StoreData, which, while mainly focusing on the retail fit-out sector, still turned over £1.594m last year (see post). […]
[…] when the full-year total peaked at £1.594m, generating an operating profit of £0.425m (see 2006: OK for StoreData), though the overall recession may also have had an impact with StoreData’s core market of […]
[…] has continued (that year, revenues peaked at £1.594m, and profits reached £0.425m – see 2006: OK for StoreData), though these latest numbers are, of course, heavily impacted by the […]