Bringing order to old systems
From Canada to Lesotho, Kiwi company Foster Moore’s registry software is sorting out government bureaucracies around the world. Emma Rawson of Unlimited reports.
JOEL FOSTER, CEO of software registry company, Foster Moore sometimes feels like he’s in a scene from the Roger Hall plays Glide Time and Market Forces.
Not that he minds. Foster has built a global business out of shaking up inefficient government departments by helping them replace their paper-based systems with his company’s online registry, Catalyst.
Based on the success of the New Zealand Companies Office registry (first created by Foster Moore back in the 1990s), government bodies in Malaysia, Colorado, US and Ontario, Canada and developing countries such as Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Tonga have switched to the Foster Moore’s online registry software, hoping they will reduce costs, and speed up processes.
But making changes in the public sector is a slow business, no matter where you are, Foster said.
‘‘There are things about having governments as a client that are good, like that they pay on time, but they have long sales cycles and their processes are quite rigid,’’ he said.
‘‘We go into these jurisdictions and some of the people have been working there for years, stapling pieces of paper together and entering in data to manage these registries.’’
Foster and his business partner Chuck Moore bought the business eight years ago from the previous owner, who had been operating the company as a registry consulting firm with the Ministry for Economic Development (now MBIE) as its sole customer.
To grow the business, Foster Moore used a research firm to investigate registry prospects offshore. Although some other territories had online registry services, the research identified there were no registry software products in the world.
Using Callaghan Innovation funding, Foster and his team began developing Catalyst, a universal registry product designed to be installed, customised and configured for each jurisdiction.
‘‘Everyone in the world had been spending thousands and thousands of dollars building these big customised solutions to do their registries and then every seven to eight years they have to invest more money to upgrade them,’’ he said.
‘‘Being a product, we can upgrade and put new functionality in registry sites every year.’’
Pacific Island nations such as Tonga, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, became a testing ground while developing the Catalyst software. Working with organisation such as the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank to create registries in those developing nations has helped raise the company’s profile while it hunted for bigger contracts.
‘‘The aim was to get the product out there because although New Zealand was regarded as the leader in online registries, we needed to get some market share and proof that we can implement it,’’ Foster said.
‘‘Some of the work we’ve done in places like the Solomon Islands has made a massive difference to those countries . . . what a registry does is give confidence to the investment community to invest in these places.’’
Foster Moore’s research company identified that Canada was a key prospect as the Ontario provincial government was planning to upgrade its companies register. Around 80 international firms were competing for the tender, but after a six-month process, Foster Moore won the contract.
‘‘We were competing against the likes of IBM and Deloitte but what Ontario wanted was an upgradable registry product and we demonstrated we had that,’’ Foster said.
Foster Moore’s strategy is to enter a market by creating a companies register and from there, search for other work creating other registries. The initial Ontario Company’s Register has led to the establishment of occupational registries such as a Security Guards Register, work in other Canadian provinces, and a new contract in the State of Colorado.
Although most of the software development is done in New Zealand by its 100 Kiwi employees, Foster Moore now has 20 staff in Toronto dedicated to implementing software for Canadian customers.
Although Foster Moore’s revenue has doubled in the past five years, lack of capital has hindered expansion.
Last year the company used investment specialists Howard & Company to help with a capital raise. Although there was significant New Zealand investment interest, the company chose Teranet, a Toronto based electronic land registration company, as a minority shareholder in May.
‘‘Teranet were strategic investors and they had existing interest in being in registries. They were not only going to bring in [money] but they could bring in expertise and knowledge.
‘‘We want to take it up to a $100 million company and just grow and grow and grow – and overtake Rod [Drury] – that’s the plan,’’ Foster laughed.
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‘Some of the people have been working there for years, stapling pieces of paper together … There are often cardigans and cups of tea coming around on a trolley.