Partner Article

Unified goes global

A SOFTWARE company has landed a string of new contracts from across the globe as it looks to pass the £1m-a-year mark.

Sunderland-based Unified Software provides a web-based validation service for organisations carrying out financial transactions online.

After securing contracts for large corporations like BT, BP and JP Morgan Chase and following a move to purpose-built premises supported by Sunderland City Council, business is gathering momentum at a rapid speed.

Recent overseas contract wins include Mentel (Canada), MCB Bank (Curacao, Caribbean), Novasol (Denmark), Datym (Australia) and Ocean Container Investments (South Africa).

George Barron, an experienced software developer, set up Unified Software in 2003 after realising a gap in the market. He initially operated from a small office in Chester-le-Street where he lives but in May 2008 he moved to Sunderland City Council’s Evolve business centre. Moving to Evolve, which has been purpose-built for software firms, has allowed George to take on three employees to help to cope with the growing demand.

He hopes to take on two further staff before the end of the year as the business becomes stronger with yet more international contracts in the pipeline and turnover approaching £1 million.

Mr Barron, 47, said: “I always knew that I had a good business idea when I started Unified Software. Every business looking to sell products or services online needs to use a validation system to check that the financial information is accurate before the transaction completes.

“Because the service we offer is web-based, it means we can provide our service to businesses in other countries just as easily as we can in the UK. So we have a massive market to target.”

New customers include North Tyneside Council, Costcutter Supermarkets, Tesco Broadband and the British Museum.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .