Case Study Company eXpd8
Regions Involved Ireland, South Africa, Canada and North America
Case Study Date 24th November, 2006
Declan Branagan, Chairman
Lessons Learnt
Be open to opportunity. Research new markets and be confident that other countries are extremely receptive to Irish business. Leverage off the goodwill towards Irish people in the worldwide business community.
If you want to optimise your investment in a product, don’t get emotional about what you’ve built – be prepared to licence out the IP or to lose the branding if it makes financial sense.
You have to have focus, enthusiasm and resilience to drive your business forward – believe in yourself and stick with it!
Background
The company was founded by Declan Branagan in 1985 and it developed as the top seller of the Take 5 accounts system to SME’s in Ireland. Over the years, there was much talk of “the paperless office” however Declan says “In fact more technology in offices seemed to generate more paper”. Declan realised that there was an opportunity to help companies become more efficient in document management. An obvious target market was the legal profession, where communications are both voluminous and highly confidential. “Essentially what we offer for any business is a better business process, reducing costs and increasing efficiencies” Over the last 5 years, eXpd8 has become a market leader in client management software and now has 20% of the market for legal professionals and 10% of the estate agency market. During 2005 Declan decided to branch out of Ireland and to investigate other markets.
First Steps
“The software built by eXpd8 is scalable and robust and as such I was confident that we should be able to translate it into other markets” Declan explains. In fact this confidence has proven essential in driving the business forward as Declan was forced to re-mortgage his home to fund the development. “It’s not an easy conversation to have with your wife, luckily we’re still together!”
At the end of 2005, Declan visited South Africa and found that there was extensive interest in his product. He approached Enterprise Ireland, who funded costs for a second visit and provided the TechSearch service to advise on negotiations. The software was installed on a trial basis in three companies soon after the initial visit. By March “06, eXpd8 found an accounts package supplier with 30 legal firms and over 4000 users. “The products dovetailed together perfectly and when the sales manager did a management buy-out of the company in September, it opened the doors for an agreement – this week alone 12 new companies in Cape Town and Johannesburg will be installing our software; that’s exciting!” The deal involves the transfer of skills and a Licence Fee per user per seat – it’s based on a distribution agreement.
Identifying an Opportunity
Given the success of the South African initiative, Declan began to consider other markets. “There was a trade mission to Canada and that appealed to me, as it’s similar to South Africa, in that they speak English and have a familiar British-based legal system, so I went with an open mind about the opportunities available”. Enterprise Ireland undertook some preliminary research with eXpd8 and before the visit a major re-seller of complementary software solutions was identified. This company is effectively a wholesaler with 132 dealers in North America and Canada. A conference call between Florida, Canada and Dublin was held and there were immediate synergies between the businesses. “A key requirement was that the distributor could re-brand the software and we had no problem with that.” Declan says. At present eXpd8 and this wholsesaler are finalising a Licensing Agreement whereby eXpd8 will licence out the software for an initial fee per user and an annual renewal fee. “The paperwork is all clean and the opportunity to achieve scale is significant so we’re very positive about growing the business now”. There is still some work to do as eXpd8 will now have to “White Label” the product so that it can be branded locally by the U.S. wholesaler.
New Horizons
“Once you start this process of knocking on doors in foreign markets, it gets easier and your mind opens to all the opportunities. If you’ve invested in building IP in your business then it makes sense to leverage off that investment through other markets.” Declan says.