‘Dashboard’ to help medical staff

Intuitive Business Intelligence, which is based in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, has devised the intuitive dashboard, which will identify the root cause of problems that are holding a business back.

The dashboard, which resembles the dashboard of a car or aircraft, helps managers keep track of debtors, creditors and cashflow.

The company has got 18 staff and the inaugural turnover is expected to be between £750,000 and £1m.

Roger Stocker, the company’s co-founder, said: “When we talk to managers, they say they spend far too long looking at spread sheets – often information is derived from different places which is conflicting. Our dashboard enables them to carry out a more efficient decision making process.”

Mr Stocker has spent most of his career in the IT sector, including stints with ICL, and he also established his own business, Capture Projects, in 2000.

He recalled: “In 2002, we bought the document managements business of Esteem Systems, which is based in Wetherby. We made two further acquisitions which turned the company into one of the fastest growing businesses in the IT sector.”

He met his present business partner Tony Bray, who had been a competitor, at an event organised by the Yorkshire Association of Business Angels (YABA).

They were both looking for companies to invest in.

Intuitive Business Intelligence, which is self-funded, was launched this year.

Mr Stocker said: “Times are tough but companies still have to make decisions. We’ve got 10 partners across the UK and expect to have 20 to 25 partners by the end of the year,

“We have experienced strong demand in America, South Africa and the Benelux countries. In early September we are opening an office in Boston in the US, which will have four or five staff.

“We will be growing through the partnership model in places like Denmark and South Africa.

“We are also looking at the Australian market. What we’re aiming to do is get the business to the multi-million pound turnover level in the next three years.”

According to Mr Stocker, the software is suitable for a wide range of markets.

He said: “We originally envisaged that the prime market would be mid-size companies. However, we have found that there is an equally strong demand from the corporate sector who, although they have the systems in place, are unable to extract the information in a meaningful format for the majority of the staff.

“For example, last week I was in a large telecoms company who actually employed three full-time staff compiling spreadsheets with sales forecast information. The information was largely out of date by the time it was issued.

“One particular area we are monitoring closely is the impact of GP commissioning in the NHS. Trusts will have a far larger range of stakeholders and will need to produce timely and accurate management information to compete for funds.

“The new GP commissioning consortia will be organisations managing hundreds of millions of pounds expenditure. They will need to get up and running quickly, with effective management information.”

SAVING MANAGERS TIME

ACCORDING to Roger Stocker, one of the co-founders of Intuitive Business Intelligence, the company’s intuitive dashboard can be of help to managers by reducing the time they have to spend sifting through spreadsheets for information.

He told the Yorkshire Post:

“We also have many other applications including monitoring university admissions, and monitoring help desks.”

It can also help bosses to keep a keen eye on power usage, finance, customer service and sales to reduce waste and keep costs to a minimum.