Embattled e-procurement player @UK, who last month warned of lower FY12 revenues due to delays in signing contracts (see @UK warns on full year), has announced that three of those contracts have come in. The deals are expected to bring revenue of over £500,000 over a three-year period. However as the company was talking of c£1m in relation to timing delays in recognising revenue, they only go half way to meeting expectations. Although this is good news for the company it is still struggling with converting opportunities.
As far as the contracts are concerned, the most notable is Serco’s extension of its contact on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council, which will enable the council to sell its in-house services to schools and academies. The size of the deal was not revealed. A shift in the market means academies no longer have to buy services from the local authority. Academies can shop around, while local authorities will be under pressure to make it easier to purchase from them. With 160 local authorities touched by this change, @UK is looking at it as a new market opportunity. However, as e-procurement is a highly competitive space, it will not be alone. Also in the local authority area, former reference customer Bristol City Council who moved away from @UK, has returned.
The company also closed a contract with JISC Advance (a NFP financed by grants from funding councils for further and higher education) to provide an ecommerce marketplace for Work Based Learning. @UK claims this is the first example of the public sector helping suppliers with their procurement to the private sector and again the company is looking at this as a new market opportunity.