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The Interview
MARTIN PRENDERGAST CEO of Concorde Solutions
“Our investors recognise this is a growing market with high barriers to entry. So far we’ve been successful in showing we can deliver a platform that tackles the complex licensing rules of the major vendors on the markets.”
M
artin Prendergast is the Co founder and CEO of Concorde Solutions Ltd, a leading provider of software asset management solutions.
What led you to establish Concorde Solutions?
Before founding Concorde I was at Morse PLC where I noticed the changing dynamics between the value of software and the value of hardware and left with the intention of establishing a solution for controlling commercial risk and delivering savings around organisations’ software estates. I had some experience of implementing software solutions for hardware asset management after a period at Peregrine Systems, where I’d run projects globally and worked with partners such as HP, CSC, EDS & Computacenter. Prior to then I’d served as an Army Officer. The market was changing and there were few companies around who could help. That’s where the idea of Concorde and our product Core Control was born.
What more can you tell us about the company?
Founded in 2007, Concorde Solutions has grown through reputation and
recommendation from
our clients and the analyst community. We have a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Platform – Core Control, which takes data around the software deployed in a client’s environment and then matches with the legal contracts and licences available to provide a view on whether there is a requirement to buy more licences or whether licences can be redistributed
to save money. The advanced analytics then help identify opportunities for rationalisation and contract renegotiation. It’s an area that organisations are aware of because they’ve been approached for audits by vendors such as Oracle, Microsoft or IBM, but they don’t know where to start or aren’t proactive in putting the controls in place until it’s too late. We have one international customer we saved over a $100m for with only two vendors, just by letting them see what they had against what they’d purchased and then advising on how to structure renewals. The savings are significant.
Our vision is for Core Control to be there for CxOs with the advanced analytics that allows them to control risk, reduce spend, ensure governance and plan for the future, not just with traditional software, but also with the new software models that come with Hybrid IT. Concorde is proud to be a member of the Cloud Industry Forum and already we’re showing customers that with our solution in place, when they migrate to the Cloud, they can control spend and actually measure how the vendor is performing. You could say the tables are turning from the world of traditional IT with its limited choice and risk of vendor audit. Now the challenge is to make sure you know what you’re being billed for and whether your vendor is meeting their SLAs.
You recently received a multi-million dollar investment from a group of backers. How do you intend to utilise these funds?
Our investors recognise this is a growing market with high barriers to entry. So far we’ve been successful in showing we can deliver a platform that tackles the complex licensing rules of the major vendors on the
CONTACT: www.concordesoftware.com
markets. This new funding will allow us to bring new innovations to market faster and aggressively drive forward our Cloud Vendor Management offering. Because we are a SaaS solution and recognised as leaders in our field we are already delivering to customers globally. This funding also allows us to grow our direct and channel sales capability and increase our market reach to both the US and Europe.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
These are exciting times for Concorde. Core Control was recently awarded Most Innovative Enterprise Product of the Year at the UK Cloud Awards 2014. We now have great backers on board, but nothing beats actually being able to deliver to some of the best- known organisations in the market and time and time again exceeding the ROI case and delivering not only significant savings, but also the control back in their relationships with their software vendors.