Original article by Norwegian business newspaper TechWatch. Reposted with permission.
– Now we're truly starting to scale.
The words belong to Audun Moen Stuland, CEO of consultancy company Vince, after a year when the company expects to pass three-digit revenue for the first time.
It's been five years since Stuland's predecessor, Øistein Reppe, went public and announced that the company would triple revenue from the then-current level within five years.
Last year revenue ended at 83 million kroner. This year Vince passes 100 million, after top-line growth of around 25 percent.
Stuland explains the strong growth with a strategic decision made several years ago.
– We laid out an ambitious five-year plan for growth and a shift from pure consultancy to increased focus on software. Now we've reached a solid level, says the Vince CEO.
In January 2020, the company started its new strategy, with greater focus on proprietary software and service delivery connected to the Infor M3 platform. The most important product is Vince Excel, which lets M3 users retrieve, update and maintain data directly in Microsoft Excel.
In 2019, the company reported revenue of 32 million kroner under Reppe's leadership. Five years later, with Stuland as CEO and Reppe as CFO, revenue has tripled, and software now accounts for approximately half of income.
According to Stuland, the software business has grown 30–40 percent annually, while the consulting part has increased 10–20 percent.
At the same time, Vince has seen a sharp increase in its customer base and now counts over 230 customers in the global M3 market.
Vince today counts 65 employees, of which 25 are consultants, and the Vince CEO points to increased customer value as a main driver of progress.
– The software delivers good value, and the user share among employees at customers is high. That provides significant efficiency gains, says Stuland.
He further explains that Vince has built in more automation and developed several integrations with other systems.
– That also makes it far more difficult to replace us, he says, pointing to customer churn below 2 percent.
The bottom line is supported by Vince having built up a solid base of annual recurring revenue (ARR) of over 60 million kroner, up from 8 million in 2020.
The focus on automation and AI integration has simultaneously opened up new products and markets. The newest is solutions for electronic collaboration via the PEPPOL network, which Vince now sells both to M3 customers and outside the existing customer base.
When asked how exposed the company is to the rapid development on the AI front, where the major players are taking increasingly larger market shares, Stuland answers:
– Our strategy going forward is to become "AI-consumable" – so that developers of AI applications can easily connect to our platform. Our answer to the AI race is to welcome them with open arms.
Vince is employee-owned, and has – despite increased investor interest and consolidation in the market – no plans to change ownership structure.
The company has laid out a new five-year plan with a goal of 25–30 percent annual growth, driven by further focus on software, automation and AI integration.
– We're entering some very exciting years, where we'll simultaneously work more on improving margins while growing, says Stuland.