Profile: Graham Poulter

It was a double-page spread in the Sunday Times colour supplement comparing a Concorde to a First World War biplane that sowed the seeds for Graham Poulter’s future.

The advert was part of Microsoft’s UK launch in the mid-1980s and the analogy was there to boast about the speed and efficiency of its new Word software.

The whole campaign was created by Poulters, the Leeds-based ad agency founded by Poulter, and it was a huge success.

“That particular ad produced sack-loads of mail,” says Poulter. “I was with the client the Tuesday after that appeared. A Post Office van arrived and unloaded sack after sack of mail – coupon responses. It was phenomenal.”

Launching Microsoft into the UK market was an experience which shaped Poulter’s future ambitions. In 1998, at the age of 56, he decided to sell the agency to eight of its directors in a management buyout and start up a new business in Wetherby with his second wife Kathryn, developing management software tools for the NHS.

“It has been an interest of mine going back to the Microsoft days,” he says. “I always found it fascinating how laborious work could be automated and how software in business could make a significant impact.”

Poulter’s company, iQ Business, trading as iQ Medical, built a range of 10 compliance management products to support GP practices.

“We did a lot of research into what tools they would need to help them and then developed the products,” says Poulter.

The software, which it sold to 3,000 practices across the UK, included health and safety tools as well as drug management and an HR system among others.

IQ Medical was sold to Leeds-based rival SRCL last November for a “good seven-figure sum”.

The deal meant Poulter could concentrate on the other part of the business which began six years ago – developing financial validation software under the name IQ Commissioning – aimed at cutting out waste in the NHS by ensuring hospitals correctly bill Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and GP practices.

“According to a report by the Audit Commission, GPs in England are overcharged by £3.51bn a year,” says Poulter. “That’s a staggering amount of money and it’s compounded by what that money could actually deliver within the NHS.”

IQ Commissioning initially sold the software into 700-800 GP practices but when the coalition Government closed down the PCTs and started setting up Clinical Commissioning Groups, the project was put into limbo.

“We had a pipeline of £13m worth of business that literally ended overnight,” says Poulter. “The new CCGs were not operational yet so we had a three-and-a-half year period where nothing could happen.”

He adds: “I’ve always wanted to go back and put a lot more effort into the software because it’s such an important situation in the NHS that needs to be resolved.”

IQ Commissioning’s software links together the IT systems used by GP practices and hospitals to spot the billing errors.

The East Midlands CCG has already adopted the software for its GP practices and Poulter is now stepping up the marketing to sell it to other CCGs around the country. It contacted the 211 CCGs two weeks ago and has already heard from 35 of their finance directors.

Poulter says: “We have a practice down in Kent with 32,000 patients. They can clear all the bills within two days with our automated software. That’s the speed and efficiency with which it delivers the benefit.”

IQ Commissioning employs seven staff and it plans to recruit 15-20 engineers to install the software over the next 12 months.

The business is owned by the Poulters and their technical director, who together have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds into the business.

Poulter, 71, is ambitious about the projected figures. If the 35 interested CCGs sign up to the software, he says it would turn the business from a start-up to a £14m turnover company.

“There’s no reason why that shouldn’t happen,” he says. “Ultimately, I want to make a contribution to making sure the money that is wasted is deployed for the benefit of patients.”

There is no reason not to believe Poulter when he says he will do something.

This is the man who launched an ad agency from a bedroom in 1969 with no clients or investment and turned it into one of the UK’s top ad agencies with a £50m turnover and over 200 staff.

After leaving school, Leeds-born Poulter worked for a number of ad agencies including one in London where he set up its regional office network. But he decided to leave that company and set up on his own after discovering what he describes as “slack” accounting practices.

Poulter was an early advocate of the concept of integrated marketing.

“In those days, all the disciplines of marketing were separate units – television, press advertising, sales promotion and public relations,” he says.

What you found was that clients were buying all these services but the various units you were working with all had a different interpretation of what should be communicated out there. I said that’s a waste of clients’ money because you need to integrate it and make sure it’s one voice.

“That struck a chord with a lot of companies. I got a lot of criticism at the time but eventually it dawned on people that that was the way to go.”

Poulters started winning business, including Porsche, against major London agencies.

“Winning Microsoft and Porsche really made people look at us with a different perspective,” Poulter says.

The agency built up an impressive array of clients including McCains and Fox’s Biscuits. It also launched Lada cars in the UK in the 1980s. “We had Porsche and Lada – talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous,” says Poulter.

He opened up offices in Manchester and Newcastle in addition to its Leeds headquarters.

“We were in the top 20 agencies in the country in terms of size and profitability,” he says.

But in 1998, after nearly 30 years, Poulter decided to leave the industry altogether. “It got to the point where I’d seen it all and done it all,” he says. “It sounds a bit arrogant but I just felt I wanted a new challenge and I wanted to build a product.”

He pauses, then adds: “Plus the agency world is full of ballerinas.”

Poulter sold the agency to the management but within 10 years the business had fallen off its pedestal and eventually closed down in 2008. He said: “I’m quite sanguine about it really. I don’t look back, I look forward. Age catches up with everyone at some point but from a personal point of view I just enjoy work.”

Graham Poulter Factfile

Name: Graham Poulter.

Title: Managing director of IQ Commissioning

Date of birth: May 5, 1942

Education: Wakefield Grammar School and Wakefield Art College

First job: Visualiser/copywriter

Favourite holiday destination: Luberon in France

Favourite film: I don’t watch a lot of films

Favourite song: I don’t have a favourite song but I like Genesis

Last book read: Michelangelo: His Epic Life by Martin Gayford

Car driven: BMW 335i

Most proud of: Winning the Microsoft contract and the results from that campaign