IRIS Blogs

I’m really excited about the strategic investment in high growth SaaS bookkeeping provider Free Agent we announced this week, led by Phill Robinson and his team.  It follows the acquisition of another SaaS business, ProjectMinder we made two years ago and the significant investments we are making internally across our product portfolio into our next generation of innovative applications and customer web portals (eg. Legal Market) to ensure that despite the recession we stay well ahead of the curve. Read more »

Every year, I review a lot of business plans. Many are internal pitches for investment, while others are business plans sent in by entrepreneurs looking to sell out. Scanning a business plan is bit like reading CVs. With experience, you can tell which business plans you want to focus your efforts on and then weed out the others for the reject pile.

Read this weeks Real Business article at http://realbusiness.co.uk/how_to_guides/top_10_tips_on_writing_a_business_plan

So there I was last week lying flat on my back, writhing in agony, wondering what had happened to me. Read my latest Real Business post:

http://realbusiness.co.uk/martin_leuw/what_do_you_stand_for

The Chancellor announced last week that the next budget and the final one before the General Election will be on 24^th March 2010. As a leading provider of tax software(personal, business and payroll), once announced, these dates are hard-wired into our brains/calendars as we have important deadlines to complete, to get everything ready for our customers. Read more »

I started 2010, with a request to everybody at IRIS: “Let’s make it an E Mail Light Year”.

We all (not just at IRIS I’m sure) spend way too many hours sending/receiving e-mail, particularly being copied on e-mails that we probably don’t even need or the worst sin of all, participating in or being copied on an e-mail argument when it’s easier just to talk. All businesses need an E-mail Etiquette and so we set one up last year. Read more »

Read my latest article for Real Business magazine at:

http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/finance-and-banking/5765903/how-many-economists-does-it-take.thtml

I met up last week with the second team of people who have just completed our one year Future Leaders programme (“FL2”), preparing them for leadership roles within IRIS, which could either result in them leading a team or in an expert/specialist role. Read more »

I read a very interesting book last year called “The End of Lawyers” by Richard Susskind. My main takeway from it, was that new entrants (e.g. supermarkets, financial services businesses) to the legal profession permitted by the so called “Tesco Law” would mean major changes to the legal sector, but that great opportunities would open up for the entrepreneurial and forward thinking practices out there. Certainly very thought provoking stuff and judging by the high number of visitors at the IRIS stand at the Legal IT show this week, the legal profession is really starting to wake up to the challenges they face and how technology can help them respond and thrive in a new more automated world. Read more »

www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/business-technology/5758683/get-a-digital-life.thtml

About 5 years ago, when the IRIS software business was a lot smaller (c250 people) compared to the 1,200 people we are today, we got everybody into one room and asked them to discuss:  “how will the future be different?” and “what should we be doing about it?”. The event was facilitated by Michael Jackson (no relation to the singer!), a futurologist. Read more »