Downturn bodes well for Software as a Service?

UK provider of online construction project control software, BIW Technologies Ltd, grew its turnover by 24 per cent in the year to 30 September 2007, achieving over £0.5m in profits in the process.

According to its latest audited accounts just filed at Companies House, BIW turnover in 2007 grew to £5.76m, up from £4.66m the previous year. A modest 2006 loss of £171,000 was turned around in 2007: BIW generated a profit of £550,000 during the year.

At 30 September 2006, the BIW order book stood at £8.4m - the sum of agreed future Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription fees (not yet recognised as revenue) that will arise from client projects that are being managed using BIW's system. Since then, a successful 18 months has seen this figure increase to over £12m, as at 31 March 2008.

BIW chief executive Colin Smith says the business has begun to capitalise on its development of applications to manage key business processes within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) and property sectors:
"Our investments in tools to manage contract processes and project finances are now clearly differentiating BIW from its competitors who remain focused on document collaboration. Sophisticated clients are increasingly looking to BIW to help them manage growing ‘back office' information processing requirements, where data from BIW's platform can be selectively interrogated to give managers and directors visibility of key performance indicators - at a project level, across a region or across an entire project portfolio."

Smith is also confident that the business will not suffer in any industry downturn:
"Earlier this year we commissioned research which showed many IT decision-makers thought that the current economic difficulties would help accelerate the pace of adoption of SaaS, identifying that it is quicker to implement, more flexible, less costly overall and requires less up-front investment.

"Also, when companies need to manage their project costs even more stringently, online project control systems help improve individual and team productivity, reduce rework and speed up inter-company processes."

International expansion has also played a part in BIW's success. Smith continues:
"BIW has opened a Middle East operations office and established a hosting facility in Dubai, recently winning a major client, property developer Nakheel. We have also established a new development and support centre at Vadodara in Gujarat, India, to help manage the strong client relationships we have established in the Middle East region."

High rates of growth were also observed within the BIW user base. BIW recorded some 3.5 million user sessions for its on-demand solutions (up 38% on 2006) - averaging over 295,000 sessions per month. Some 1.4 million original documents and drawings were published to the system (up 32%).