Infoserve upbeat about future after falling revenues

Infoserve helps internet users to search for information about businesses in their area.

It also acts as a ‘one-stop’ online marketing platform for advertisers.

The business reported a profit from continuing operations of £187,000 in the year ended March 31 2013, compared with £483,000 the year before. Revenue fell by eight per cent to £4.5m.

Derek Oliver, the company’s chief executive and founder, told the Yorkshire Post: “Turnover and profit may be down compared with last year, but we are still profitable, and despite challenging market conditions, in which small businesses have limited budgets, we still see healthy demand for our products and services.

“We’re a thriving Yorkshire business that employs more than 100 people.

“The market has gone through some challenging times, but we have responded well, with planned expansion of the sales team, and we’ve diversified our product mix.

“We have shifted a healthy percentage of our products from simple directory listings to pay-for-performance products, such as our click packages.

“These are proving very popular with small businesses, who also like our pay-as-you-go pricing model, which allows them to scale up, based on success and conversion.

“We manage the whole process for a simple monthly fee and report on performance.”

Mr Oliver said he intended to expand this model to include a suite of products for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) or start-up businesses.

These products would enable companies to “self-source” all their digital marketing needs from Infoserve, for a monthly payment.

They can then “scale up or down dependent on budget and market conditions”, Mr Oliver said.

Mr Oliver, who lives in Ilkley, added: “They can self-manage if they choose, but they have the added confidence that we’re here to help and support if they want to simply focus on running their business.

“Early trials are showing that this is a popular model and one that shows huge growth potential.”

The team behind Infoserve includes David Hood, the technology entrepreneur who founded the set-top box maker Pace, which is based in Saltaire, near Bradford.

The company has its headquarters at the South Side Aviation Centre at Leeds Bradford International Airport, and sales operations in Leeds and Darlington.

Before Mr Oliver’s appointment, in March this year, the company had two joint managing directors – Mr Oliver and Jonathan Simpson.

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