SOFTWARE
Forging ahead as one 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.
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.
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
Ian Buckley Prima Software
Terry Thurgood Foresight Technology
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