From start-up to exit: Oxford Computer Consultants
June 2, 2023
Following the recent acquisition of 33-year-old Oxford Computer Consultants by long-standing partner System C Healthcare, we spoke to co-founder Dr John Boyle about his innovation journey. He shared his insights about setting up and growing a science and tech business, the value of partnerships and support from organisations like The Oxford Trust.
It started in a portacabin
Starting up in 1989, just a few years after The Oxford Trust was established in 1985, Oxford Computer Consultants, founded by John Boyle and Kaz Librowski , was one of the early beneficiaries of the Trust’s work supporting science and tech enterprises, and John credits this environment as part of the early foundation of their success.
They set up home in the Trust’s Science and Technology Enterprise Project (STEP) Centre, occupying a small, basic space in a portacabin on the Osney Mead site in west Oxford, which offered just what a young start-up with little money needed.
Two key things made the STEP Centre attractive: it was cheap (at least for the first two years) and it offered additional support valuable to a brand new start-up. This included help in making connections and setting up meetings. The Centre also hosted weekly talks about different aspects of running a business by relevant experts, including the late Sir Martin Wood. And, John muses, it also helped that, for a start-up with little money, they had free beer and sandwiches after the talks.
The Trust’s small innovation centre in Osney was the first innovation centre in Oxford and, in fact, the first in the UK and helped kick-start the innovation ecosystem we see in Oxfordshire today.
The Oxford Trust’s Osney Mead site in the 1980s
“The whole ecosystem matters”
John says that, for a business, the whole ecosystem matters – including all the people you meet and the expertise you accumulate. The Oxford Trust is at the heart of this. And, he says, “just as the Trust helped them get going decades ago, it will help the next generation of companies get going too.” This view brought him back to The Oxford Trust as a Trustee in 2014, many years since his modest beginnings in the portacabin, to contribute to the ecosystem that supported him.
A turning point
Equipped with his PhD in artificial intelligence (AI), John set out for Oxford Computer Consultants to build ‘expert systems’, i.e. decision-making systems, for different applications, particularly in fields of engineering. Also, being the early days of the internet, they offered the services of software engineers, designing systems and applying internet technology.
The turning point for the company came when they wrote an application for a hospital trust, discovered they owned the intellectual property to that application, and went on to replicate and sell the system to other clients. There are now over 70 authorities using the systems evolving from their original product in health and social care. The realisation that they owned the IP, and could extend its value, formed the turning point for their business.
While this key product forms the biggest part of what they now do, they have also and will continue to develop custom software in other sectors. For example, National Grid recruited them to work out, with modelling, which parts of the grid were vulnerable to melt under the power loads – a complicated challenge. They also developed numerous e-commerce systems as internet technology developed.
Staying flexible for growth
John reflects on an important piece of advice that stood out for him – don’t buy offices when your business isn’t in property. Not being saddled with fixed office space meant they could stay flexible and allowed for the growth and change that can happen quickly in a young start-up. They left the STEP Centre in their third year, as they started to grow their team. Over the decades, they have grown from a team of two to 120 employees and have occupied various office spaces, but always around Oxford city centre where they could more easily attract talented students.
Partnerships are valuable
John emphasises the value of partnerships. Before being acquired by System C, they partnered for over 20 years on the systems and software used to manage the delivery of public services in health and social care, including care, independent living and residential care. Their systems manage the journey of the citizen through care and the finances around it. With the strength of the partnership and complementarity of the two companies, the acquisition is expected to result in an even stronger company and improved service for customers, better than the sum of the two parts.
The future after acquisition
With the company in a strong, well-managed position, John believes it was the right time to exit. And, having had a successful partnership for so many years, he says Oxford Computer Consultant’s acquisition is a genuine move by System C to take on board the full value of its expertise and experience. Beyond the work they had partnered on, System C is interested in taking on all aspects of their business, and so will be venturing into new spaces themselves and diversifying their current offering.
The acquisition will mean smoother experiences for customers, who were previously dealing with both companies. It will mean technologies and systems can be developed better together. And it will mean new opportunities will be available for people within the company.
Giving back to the ecosystem through The Oxford Trust
Since The Oxford Trust’s positive impact at the start of their business journey, John had always said he would like to contribute something back to the Trust one day. So, when asked, he was happy to join the Board of Trustees in 2014, and he became Chairman in 2015.
In the time he has served as a trustee, he has been a part of some major developments in The Oxford Trust. The unique opportunity to purchase the lease of land earmarked to incorporate education in Headington, led to the fulfillment of a long-standing plan to develop a dedicated space for STEM education activities with the Trust’s own science centre. So, the Science Oxford Centre was born, marking a major development in its work in STEM education and public engagement.
The development of the Wood Centre for Innovation on the Headington site also led to significant shift in the innovation and enterprise arm of The Oxford Trust. Here, investment has been made into the development of laboratory space, enabling the Trust to offer spaces to a range of start-ups needing biological and technical lab space. This is quite a different environment to the two-man-sized portacabins of the STEP Centre.
As John prepares to exit Oxford Computer Consultants over the next year, he says he is still working out what will be next for him. Whatever it may be, we wish him well and thank him too for his contribution to the ecosystem that is supporting the next generation of science and tech start-ups.
