AA Awards 2008: Enterprise Software of the Year

Coda has scooped the enterprise software award for the second year in a row – a marvellous achievement for a company that has undergone such change in recent times.

On the corporate side, the business split from SciSys and was then acquired by Unit 4 Agresso.
The goings-on certainly haven’t adversely affected the quality of its products and, as such, Financials has again picked up the top prize.

Fighting off competition from Interwoven, again CedarOpenAccounts (now COA Solutions) and Version One,

Coda’s Financials impressed the judges with its functionality and reliability.
‘They’ve proved strong on customer care and spent £10m on R&D,’ said one judge.
‘Record client numbers, including Trainline and Mothercare, plus a new version of the product, which has included 300 man-years of work. Impressive.’

Surveys have found that 91% of respondents would definitely buy Coda’s products again, and ‘call audits’ are undertaken on every fifth caller.

Financials is now 100% web-deployed, and can be rapidly rolled out.

Its innovation has been driven by a 170+ strong team of developers and over one-fifth of its revenues are reinvested in R&D. Gartner found that 25% of Coda’s new technologies and ideas were driven by clients, compared to an industry average of 10%.

Even in tough times the firm expects great results. Record client numbers came through for 2007 and the first half of 2008.

Its acquisition by Agresso gives it access into five new countries: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Portugal and Spain.

Coda believes its product is also flexible enough to change with its customers.

Customer testimonials

As you would expect from our winners, Coda posted great testimonials backing its product. Cineworld, which runs cinemas across 74 sites, saw the benefit of Financials in eliminating copying data from excel spreadsheets, speeding up its month end reporting.
‘Coda’s single ledger design and flexible chart of accounts makes it easy for us to record these measures in real time across the group and will support us as we grow through selective new openings, expansions and acquisitions,’ said finance systems analyst Jason Wright.