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Smart Technology for Profit

Tuesday 22 July 2014, 4:38PM

By ProWorkflow.com

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ProActive Software is one of those ‘Under the radar’ companies that has been quietly building a Software as a Service (SaaS) business for a decade operating globally from day one.  With export sales accounting for over 90% of revenue and thousands of paying users globally it created a big sales and service management challenge.

“Lots of companies build great application software and we doing that with ProWorkflow (PWF) but we also realised from the outset that being profitable in the early stages of selling SaaS can be hard, recurring revenue builds over time but costs are front end loaded,” says ProActive Software CEO Julian Stone.

“That can be addressed by building a company the investment way.  Spending investor funds from a heavy balance sheet, until the recurring revenue catches up or by taking a hard look at costs, making every dollar count; what ProActive Software calls low inertia operating.”

“What that means is try to minimise all activity that does not add to selling effort, customer support or product development and make those activities as efficient as possible.  That is where ProCodeManager (PCM) comes into play. We have probably put as much effort into PCM as we have into PWF.  PCM delivers the business, sales and service management system; it catches everything from sales and service transactions, billing, technology management to management reporting.  Without it we would be carrying a huge administration cost and still dropping the ball.”

“Everything happens in real time, accessed from anywhere so management and the board just concentrate on growing and improving the business.  Leads and service queries are managed through the system, staff have the information necessary to deal with the customers on screen automatically when needed, leads and queries are passed from one staff member to another seamlessly – very little falls through the cracks and customers tell us they love it.”

“When we first looked at building a SaaS business, making ends meet was an issue.  Back then technology investment was not easy in New Zealand so the investment route was essentially closed.  Necessity became the driver of innovation and the idea of closely linking the business processes with the available technologies crystallised in PCM.  Low cost, automated administration was the objective and PCM was born”, says Chairman John Walley.  

“It’s hard to imagine being in any business without the support of PCM”, says Stone.

For further comment contact Julian Stone (+6421 864 639) or John Walley (+6421 809 631)

ProActive Software is based in New Zealand, develops and sells ProWorkflow web based project management software.  For more information please see www.proworkflow.com.