Advanced Computer Software

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Advanced Computer Software Group Ltd.
Company typePrivate
Industry
Founded2008; 16 years ago (2008)
Slough, Berkshire
Founders
Headquarters
Birmingham
,
United Kingdom
Area served
United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, India, Australia, Canada and United States
Key people
Simon Walsh (CEO)
Revenue
  • Increase £322m (2023)
  • £317m (2022)
  • Decrease -£446m (2023)
  • £107m (2022)
Owner
Number of employees
  • Increase 2,960 (2023)
  • 2,676 (2022)
Websiteoneadvanced.com

Advanced Computer Software Group Ltd. (operating as Advanced) is a British private company founded by Vin Murria in 2008 with its headquarters in Birmingham, West Midlands. It provides information technology services including hosting and cloud based systems to the NHS and many other organisations. Through various acquisitions, in 2016 it became the third largest software provider in the UK market while employing over 2,400 people with a customer base of more than 20,000 organisations. Later in the year it would go on to rebrand itself to "Advanced" while opening its central headquarters in Birmingham's Mailbox.[1]

History[edit]

Advanced was founded by Vin Murria in 2008. Originally listed on the Alternative Investment Market in 2008 with a cash value of £3 million, it was bought by Vista Equity Partners in 2014 for £765 million. From the 18% stake Murria held in Advanced she took £140.2m from the sale making her one of the wealthiest women in the UK.[2] Murria was awarded an OBE for services to the UK digital economy and advancing women in the software sector in the 2018 New Year Honours.[3]

At the time of sale, Vista brought in a new leadership team including Chief Executive Officer Gordon Wilson, and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Hicks.

In August 2019, Vista sold a 50% stake in Advanced to BC Partners for £2 billion including debt.[4]

In 2023, Advanced undertook a strategy refresh alongside changes to the executive management team, appointing Simon Walsh as Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Dews as Chief Financial Officer and Andrew Henderson as Chief Technology Officer. The aim of the strategy refresh is stated to prioritise resources into high growth market sectors and product categories.[5]

Health and Care Cyber Incident[edit]

In August 2022, Advanced experienced a cybersecurity incident caused by LockBit 3.0 ransomware.[6] Adastra, Caresys, Odyssey, Carenotes, Crosscare, Staffplan and eFinancials products were all affected, with varying downtime and recovery. Perpetrators of the attack were able to extract information relating to 16 Staffplan and Caresys customers.[7]

The cyber attack including resulting remediation and outage credits cost the group £18.2 million in 2023 with a further £2.7 million provisioned for additional expenditure in future years.[5]

Locations[edit]

Advanced's head office is located in Mailbox, Birmingham with other office locations in Newcastle, Ashford, Dublin, York and Willerby. The US head office is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Advanced also have offices in Bangalore, Karnataka and Baroda, Gujarat, India which is where the primary development function is located.

Acquisitions[edit]

Acquisition Date Price Notes
Serco Learning December 2012 £7.25m A deal for Serco's education unit, bringing software including Facility CMIS Administration with Facility ePortal and Progresso for primary and secondary schools, timetabling software Scheduler, and CMIS and CMIS Go for the higher education sector.
Computer Software Holdings March 2013 £110m Paid for partly by the share placing that helped raise £44m for ACS.[8]
Compass February 2014 £14.5m Advanced extended its reach in the education software market by purchasing Chester-based CRM specialist Compass Computer Consultants.[9] Compass was later renamed "ProSuite".
ConsultCRM[10] April 2014
Hudman[11] July 2017 A Welsh cloud SaaS solution, Hudman was later renamed "Business Cloud Essentials".
Information Balance March 2018 £2.5m
Science Warehouse March 2018 £17m A British developer of cloud SaaS procurement solutions for £17 million.[12] Science Warehouse was later renamed "Cloud Marketplace"
Docman July 2018 £90m Advanced acquired PCTI Solutions.[13] Their product, Docman, maintains one billion records and documents for more than 40,000,000 patients in the UK, including the whole of Scotland.[14] A problem with version 7 of the Docman platform in September 2018 meant letters received through NHSmail, automatically scanned to be added to patient records, were not uploaded. About 6,000 GP practices using the electronic document transfer function were affected.[15]
Oyez March 2019 £23.2m
Kirona April 2019 £55.1m Acquired from Livingbridge and Gresham House.
Modern Systems July 2019 $26m
Careworks November 2019 €21.5m
Tikit March 2020 £46.8m Acquired for significantly less than the original £80 million asking price.[16]
Mitrefinch October 2020 £90.6m Acquired from LDC who completed a management buyout in 2016 for £20 million.[17]
Clear Review October 2020 £26m Acquired from Stuart Hearn (entrepreneur and former Sony Music HR Director) and Mercia Asset Management[18]
Certainty February 2021 £16.3m
bksb May 2021 £19.3m Acquired from West Nottinghamshire College.
Smart Apprentices May 2021 £28m Acquired from entrepreneur Fiona Hudson-Kelly.[19]
Isosec September 2021 £22.3m A previous acquisition attempt from rival firm Imprivata was abandoned in May 2021 after a CMA investigation.[20]
cloudtrade October 2021 £25.8m
Portt April 2022 £16.05m
Decision Time April 2022 £22m
Pellcomp June 2022 £8.1m

List of Software[edit]

  • Advanced Time and Attendance (formerly Mitrefinch TMS/HR Manager)
  • Advanced Pay (formerly Mitrefinch Flexipay)
  • Advanced Device & Access Manager (formerly MF Secure - successor to Mitrefinch Access Control)
  • Cloud School (formerly Progresso)
  • Facility CMIS Administration
  • Scheduler
  • Facility ePortal
  • CMIS
  • CMIS Go
  • FM Easy
  • OpenAccounts
  • Advanced HR (formerly Cloud HR)
  • OpenPeople
  • OpenWMS
  • Odyssey
  • Exchequer
  • eFinancials
  • eBis
  • ProAchieve
  • ProMonitor
  • ProSolution
  • TALENT Ticketing Solutions
  • Integra
  • Business Cloud Essentials
  • Advanced Financials (formerly Cloud Financials)
  • Staffplan
  • Caresys
  • Carenotes
  • Adastra
  • Crosscare
  • V1 Document Management
  • Advanced Data Automation (formerly Cloud trade)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Advanced Computer Software Group rebrands as Advanced, implements new marketing strategy". The Drum. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  2. ^ Armstrong, Ashley (25 November 2014). "Advanced Computer Software agrees to £765m takeover by Vista". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  3. ^ "Softcat director and TechUK president included on New Year Honours list". Channel web. 2 January 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  4. ^ "BC Partners buys 50% stake in Advanced from Vista Equity". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  5. ^ a b "ASTON MIDCO LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 2023-11-30.
  6. ^ "NHS 111 software outage confirmed as cyber-attack". BBC News. 2022-08-05. Retrieved 2023-11-13.
  7. ^ "Client data exfiltrated in Advanced NHS cyber attack". Digital Health. 2022-10-13. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  8. ^ "ACS splashes out £110m for Computer Software Holdings". MicroScope. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
  9. ^ "ACS extends education reach with Compass acquisition". MicroScope. 3 February 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
  10. ^ "ACS extends portfolio with ConsultCRM acquisition". MicroScope. 3 April 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
  11. ^ "Advanced announces acquisition to accelerate Cloud adoption". Advanced. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  12. ^ "Science Warehouse". Advanced. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  13. ^ "Advanced acquires Docman". Health Tech Newspaper. 5 July 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  14. ^ "CLINICAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER BOUGHT BY ADVANCED". Insider Media. 3 July 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  15. ^ "GPs unable to fully access digital patient records after faulty update to IT platform". IT Pro. 12 September 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  16. ^ "BT offloads £80m legal software arm Tikit as sell-off continues". CityAM. 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  17. ^ "LDC exits Mitrefinch following successful growth journey". LDC. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
  18. ^ "Successful exit of Clear Review delivering a 72% IRR". Mercia. 2020-10-19. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
  19. ^ "Fiona Hudson-Kelly". Fiona Hudson-Kelly. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
  20. ^ "Imprivata, Inc. / Isosec Limited merger inquiry". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2021-10-17.
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