COA Solutions Ltd
COA Solutions is a supplier of integrated business management and information systems to public, private and not-for-profit organisations in the service sector.
Operations
COA Solutions has more than 500 staff supporting and servicing over 4,000 clients across the UK service sector. The organisation operates from 10 UK locations in Cobham, Aberdeen, Aylesbury, Bridgwater, Gateshead, Harpenden, Huntingdon, Ipswich, Northampton, Manchester and also maintain offices in Boston, MA
Pre 2002 History
Founded in 1983, COA Solutions started life as the Cedar Group.
The Cedar Group was fully quoted on the London STOCK Exchange (CED.L). It had grown both organically and by acquisition. From its roots in the financial software market it acquired companies in the call centre software; data warehousing and data migration; document management and workflow; and content management arenas to deliver knowledge based enterprise business solutions.
Cedar Group developed practical solutions around E Business, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Knowledge Management initiatives. Examples include content value management, eProcurement, enterprise portals and financial management.
The Cedar Group's solutions were available through traditional installations, fully outsourced or delivered via the Internet using the Application Service Provision (ASP) model.
The customer base spanned across the public sector (The Ministry of DeFence, over 60 local authorities and over 80 hospitals) through telecommunications (Orange, BT Cellnet) to large financial services players (Norwich Union and The Prudential).
Cedar Group, which specialised in banking and accountancy software, saw its share price hit a closing high of 1,468p at the height of the tech boom in March 2000.
January 2002
The firm was hit hard by the tech slowdown, and in early 2002 The Cedar Group was acquired by Alchemy Partners for £4.2m and also received a £34m cash injection and debt facility from Bank of Scotland and Alchemy.
Post 2002 History
2003
Cedar Enterprise Solutions purchases Goldenhill Ltd in order to offer Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions to its clients.
Meanwhile, The IP to the QSP Enterprise software suite was acquired by Walker International, who shortly thereafter re-branded to Elevon. Elevon were headquartered in San Francisco, and described themselves as a provider of advanced business solutions in the areas of collaborative commerce and knowledge management. (Elevon later went on to be acquired by SSA in July 2003). There was a management buy out by the UK management team of Elevon in 2002, which created the Arelon company. This buy out was funded by Alchemy, In January 2003 Arelon and Cedar Enterprise Solutions merged and rebranded to CedAr
2004
The newly branded CedAr purchased OpenAccounts Ltd to broaden its offering to commercial and business services clients. The customer number rises to 1,200 and headcount to 350. In a report published this year, CedAR ranks third in the UK Financial Management Systems vendor list compiled by Gartner Dataquest. The company won the Accountancy Age Award for Best Enterprise Software Package for the second time. The company rebranded itself as CedarOpenAccounts Ltd in June 2004.
2006
CedarOpenAccounts Ltd purchases Grampian Software Ltd and its OpenPeople HR and Payroll solutions. It brings 300 customers. Driven by a customer requirement for additional reporting and analytic capabilities CedarOpenAccounts Ltd goes on to purchase Strata Systems a Business Intelligence and HR Analytics software vendor based in Ipswich. The acquisition sees Strata’s BI software products integrated into COA’s Smart Business Suite of products. Investment in development is sustained above industry average at 14% with an offshore development centre opening in Vietnam.
2007
CedarOpenAccounts acquired BI Inform, a specialist reseller of Cognos Business Intelligence software based in Harrogate. The deal expands the company’s presence in the BI market as one of the top three resellers of Cognos-based solutions in the UK. This is followed by the purchase of long-term business partner Version One. COA and Version One have been partners since 1997 and already have more than 250 shared accounts. The staff number now exceeds 450 and customers 3000. Version One retains its brand identity. The rest of the business is united under the COA Brand
2008
The acquisitions of eProcurement company Belmin in February 2008 and HR specialist ASR Computers in April 2008 are completed. This adds additional capabilities in the Health sector and adds further HR and Payroll capabilities to their Smart Business Suite. The staff number is now 500 and customers are now 4000. COA is rebranded COA Solutions and adopts a new 'closer to your business' brand identity. Belmin immediately adopted the COA Solutions brand, whilst ASR adopted a transitional strategy.
2009
ASR rebrands as COA Solutions coming fully under the COA Solutions brand identity.
Clients
COA Solutions now has over 4,000 clients across the UK service sector including Companies House, Newcastle City Council, WHSmith, Royal Bank of Scotland, Aer Lingus, National Express Group, DFS, RSPB and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust.
Awards, accreditations and memberships
- Green Hero Award Winner 2009
- Green Apple Award Winner 2008
- Accountancy Age Award 2008 Finalist
- Real FD/CBI Excellence Awards 2008 finalist
- Accountancy Age Awards for Software Excellence - COA Solutions OpenAccounts has been short-listed for this award in the Enterprise Software category every year for the last eight years. OpenAccounts won this category in 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2006.
- Business Software Satisfaction Awards - Sift Media
- HM Revenue & Customs Pensioner Payroll Standard
- HM Revenue & Customs Payroll Standard
- HMRC CIS Electronic Gateway - Granted by HMRC for the successful testing of COA Solutions' CIS Electronic Gateway through Vendor Single Integrated Proving Service (VSIPS)
- COA Solutions is registered to the international quality standard, ISO9001:2000.
- ICAEW Accredited Products Scheme
- COA Solutions North America is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA)
- BASDA - COA Solutions is a signatory to the BASDA Code of Practice. COA Solutions has been an active supporter of BASDA since its inception.
- BASDA Green Charter Member
- CFDG - COA Solutions is a corporate subscribers to CFDG, the Charity Finance Directors Group
- HFMA - COA Solutions is a corporate partners with HFMA
See also
- Enterprise Software
- Electronic Document Management
- Document Imaging
- Accounting Software
- Human Resources Management System
- Procurement Software
- Business Intelligence