Excellence in Business Awards 2011: Fast track from academia to driving transport networks

UNIVERSITY of Leeds spin-out Tracsis Plc scooped the accolade for Companies with a turnover up to £10m, sponsored by Yorkshire Bank, at the Yorkshire Post’s Excellence in Business Awards.

The Leeds-based transport software group saw its turnover increase from £805,000 in 2008 to £2.67m in 2010, with its operating profit rising from £300,000 to £573,000. Tracsis, which designs and licenses software to help train operators cut costs and speed up scheduling of staff and rolling stock, has recently completed its fourth acquisition in four years since IPO in 2007.

The business has also recently completed an oversubscribed share placing of £1.95m from several institutional investors.

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Revenue and profits have grown siginificantly each year since inception, and the company has averaged more than 60 per cent annual revenue growth since IPO with significant positive earnings.

Tracsis was spun out of the University of Leeds’ School of Computing in 2004, and it continues to work closely with the university. The entire business was founded on commercialising a single innovation – the TRACS crew scheduling software. This software has some 200 man-years of research vested within it and substantial additional effort has gone into turning a university innovation into an industry- strength software tool.

The business has contracts in place with nearly every major train operating company within the UK and works closely with major household names such as Virgin, First Group, National Express, Go-Ahead and Stagecoach.

More recently, Tracsis has ventured overseas and now works in Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.

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The company’s most recent acquisition was MPEC Technology, showing the group expanding its product offering into related hardware components.

Tracsis says its success is largely attributable to the close working relationship its team has with its customer base. Meanwhile, the Tracsis says it is committed to staff retention and motivation, adding that the business operates a flexible approach to work-life balance and staff are able to make their own choices with regards to office space and working environment.

The business also operates a significant stock option scheme whereby employees can share in the future success of the company.

After receiving the award, John McArthur, chief executive, said he was “thrilled” to have won the category. He added: “We’re very pleased about our consistent growth over the past four years, since IPO in 2007, and this looks set to continue in spite of the continuing economic uncertainty.

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“Tracsis will remain focused on providing solutions to large optimisation problems that are widespread within the transportation sector and there are several hot topics which are all the more pertinent in a recession such as vehicle and route utilisation, overcrowding, and the delivery of real-time information for operators and passengers about what’s happening during service disruption.

“Along with looking at our core transportation markets, we are also beginning to look at other markets and business opportunities overseas and we recently delivered a significant project in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup.

“In the coming year we will continue to invest in strengthening our team and hiring the best talent possible. We also have significant cash reserves to enable us to continue making the right strategic acquisitions as and when these arise.

“All in all we’re very well positioned for further growth and I’d like to think we’re one of the most promising small cap technology companies on London Stock Exchange today.”

The judges said Tracsis Plc a prime example of university knowledge being commercialised and performing well in its market. [email protected]