Press Release 24 July 2009
Atlantic Global Plc
("Atlantic Global" or "the Group")
Trading Update
Atlantic Global Plc (AIM: ATL), the specialist provider of integrated
business and resource management software applications, today
announces a trading update prior to the announcement of its interim
results for the six months ended 30 June 2009, which are due to be
published on 22 September 2009.
Trading Results
As expected, turnover for the six months to 30 June 2009 was lower
than the same period last year. The Group has incurred a loss before
tax of approximately £150,000 during this period. This arose due to
adverse economic conditions affecting customers' procurement budgets
and also due to a slower than expected take-up of the OnDemand
product. However, the Group did experience increased activity in the
last quarter. In addition, the Group secured a number of blue-chip
OnDemand customers during the six months to 30 June 2009 including
Man Group Plc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Improvements to this product
have been launched during July 2009 to address some initial customer
feedback.
Furthermore, Atlantic Global has secured first phase payments on
contracts with two significant global customers and the Group expects
further material revenue in the second half.
Outlook
The pipeline of new business opportunities remains satisfactory and
progress has been made on contracts arising from partnership
opportunities. The Directors believe that the Group will produce an
improved performance in the second half of 2009 but there can be no
certainty that the short falls experienced in this period will be
made up in the six months to 31 December 2009.
Cash Balances
As at 30 June 2009, the Group had net cash balances of over £2.265m
compared with £2.159m at 31 December 2008, showing an increase of
over £100,000.
- Ends -
For further information please contact:
Atlantic Global Plc
Eugene Blaine, Managing Director Tel: +44 (0) 1274 863 300
Rupert Hutton, Finance Director
eugene.blaine@atlantic-global.com
rupert.hutton@atlantic-global.com www.atlantic-global.co.uk
Daniel Stewart & Company plc
Graham Webster / Charlotte Stranner Tel: +44 (0) 207 776 6550
Media enquiries:
Abchurch
Sarah Hollins / Mark Dixon Tel: +44 (0) 207 398 7729
mark.dixon@abchurch-group.com www.abchurch-group.com
Notes to Editors and Product Update:
Atlantic Global develops and implements business management solutions
designed to manage businesses people, project and customer
relationship management processes. The solution includes four
intuitive, easy to use modules: time and expense management, project
management, project portfolio management and customer relationship
management. A key aspect of the Atlantic Global solution is cost
control through better strategic planning, accurate cost capture and
improved resource utilisation.
Atlantic Global is widely recognised by software industry analysts as
being in the top 25 vendors within the emerging Project Portfolio
Management (PPM) market. More specifically, it is one of only two
European organisations included in Gartner's 'Magic Quadrant' for
PPM.
Atlantic Global's software has been designed to be scalable to all
organisations no matter what size or complexity. The Group's
customer base ranges from SMEs to global 1,000 organisations and
includes: Aircom International; Bank of Tokyo; GlaxoSmithKline;
Norwich Union; Aviva; Provident Financial; Kingston Communications;
The National Assembly of Wales; Tiscali, Capita National Strategies
and Virgin Mobile.
Atlantic Global successfully launched an OnDemand (Software As A
Service) product in October 2008. The further development and sale of
this product remains a key strategy for 2009 and beyond. The Group
has received positive feedback from its customers who have adopted
OnDemand on the reliability and scalability of the product.
New products include the following features with an objective of
making customers self sufficient:
Multi-Tenancy: All OnDemand customers will use the same web site
reducing the overhead associated with adding and upgrading existing
customers.
Automated Data Load: A simple yet powerful function that allows
customers to load their own data into the system without any need to
contact Atlantic Global.
Integrated Training: Every major screen in the system will have a
link to the Atlantic Global web site where customers will have access
to training videos and tutorials to support their use of the product.
Further Improvements to the User Interface: The Group has
implemented further changes to the user interface to make the system
even more intuitive.
House Keeping: The Group is introducing analytics which will
continually assess the number of people accessing the system. This
will be used to quickly identify and remove customer trials where
there is insufficient activity.
Systems Administration: The Group has developed a tool to automate
the creation and removal of customer implementations. This will
increase the turnaround speed of getting customers up and running and
also reduce the administration cost.
Pre-Configured Database: New customers will receive a pre-configured
database containing "best practice" configurations to support
different approaches from Project and Resource management to wider
business disciplines including Customer Relationship Management,
Helpdesk Management and Sales Management.
These changes will improve the speed and ease of product adoption
whilst significantly reducing the administration overhead, support
overheads and cost of sales.
Furthermore, it will now be feasible to offer very attractive
promotions to new customers at a relatively low cost to Atlantic
Global.
Traditional Implementations
New Product Initiatives:
The next phase of development will introduce three key benefits to
the product.
The first major feature will be to give customers access to the
system using their mobile telephone.
The second feature will be the introduction of an Advanced Contract
Management and Billing Module to help organisations to make their
contract management and billing processes more efficient.
Thirdly, the Group will be introducing a new Organisational Profiling
module to help larger organisations to gain better visibility of
resource utilisation across the business. It will also help to
improve the financial forecasting process throughout the business.
All of these modules are scheduled are launch in the autumn of 2009
and are geared at helping organisations to become more efficient and
to prosper in challenging economic times.
Founded in 1993, Atlantic Global is headquartered in West Yorkshire,
England. It listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of The
London Stock Exchange in June 2001.
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