New venture promises high growth for Leeds firm
A YORKSHIRE entrepreneur with a powerful commercial track record in the IT industry has launched a new cost-effective and flexible e-commerce system to help companies combat the economic downturn.
Rose Stewart’s business achievements already include setting up, growing and selling an IT consumables business as well as building a company from scratch to a £2m turnover within 10 years.
For her latest venture Ms Stewart has pulled together a global team of developers to design the innovative product, which is being supported by Business Link Yorkshire’s High Growth Start-up programme.
Leeds-based Ebnus’ e-commerce and e-procurement software is an easy-to-use tool that lets companies offer online sales.
The white-label platform element allows distributors and wholesalers to share product data with their dealer clients, manage stock centrally and create an unlimited number of sub-sites for themselves or resellers.
The e-procurement module also displays client contract pricing to give a quick reference overview of the relationship.
The sites have full back office integration and can be tailored to match the branding of each dealer. The product uses the latest software architecture to offer current and future compatibility across different platforms including mobile phones and portable PCs.
The business is targeting £250,000 turnover in its first year and seeking to increase its staff numbers.
Ms Stewart said: “E-commerce sites are often considered to be hugely expensive, but Ebnus is an off the shelf package that allows users a wealth of benefits such as quick and easy updates to stock information, real-time reports on sales and the ability to add an unlimited number of sub sites for dealers.
“The software application is perfectly suited to several different business models and can be fully customised by our IT team depending on what is required. E-commerce has dramatically changed the face of business and we predict that our software is the next step.
Business Link’s high growth team provides businesses with access to professional services, pertinent to pre-start and early stage businesses needing to raise finance and organise themselves for growth and is open to companies set to employ two to five people and which are expected to reach a turnover of between £120,000 and £1m after two years of trading.
Associate adviser Mark Mattocks who is mentoring Ebnus said: “Sometimes young companies just need a spark to catalyse their development.
“Rose and her team have researched the market extensively and drawn upon a wealth of industry knowledge from their experience to develop the software. In the current economic climate companies will be seeking products that give them a competitive advantage without breaking the bank and Ebnus is just that.”
