QUADRENT
“From the beginning, it felt more like a collaboration rather than your traditional vendor partnership. If you look at the relationship that Quadrent and IRIS have now, the two companies have a fantastic synergy and work together to form a great partnership.” Stefan Iggo, CFO of Quadrent
IRIS INNERVISION ENABLES QUADRENT TO ACCELERATE GROWTH
Established in 2002, Quadrent specializes in providing tailored financial services and solutions to Australasia’s large corporate and public sector organizations. Its offering includes lease and rental payment plans; asset management tools; and managed services, alongside solutions for managing and reporting on lease portfolios. Quadrent combines entrepreneurial drive with industry expertise to provide its customers with an innovative and customized financial solution. The company is well recognized for its successful delivery of financial solutions across a large territory across the APAC region.
BACKGROUND
Following the January 2016 publication of the new lease accounting standards – ASC 842 & IFRS 16, Quadrent recognized an emerging opportunity to build a significant and sustainable revenue stream through the provision of essential compliance-driven software to its customers. This opportunity was accomplished through a channel partnership with IRIS Innervision, an international supplier of lease accounting software and part of the IRIS Software Group.
Since the start of the partnership in 2017, over 70 companies across the region have implemented the IRIS lease accounting solution for their reporting needs. The engagement has been highly successful for all parties – Quadrent, IRIS, and most importantly the customers.
THE ROUTE TO PARTNERSHIP – THE CHALLENGE
As part of its central growth objectives, Quadrent recognized that providing a lease accounting solution to its customers that would facilitate a simplified and quicker transition to ASC 842, IFRS 16 and AASB16. The most efficient route was to create a strategic vendor alliance, designed to encourage genuine collaboration and allow Quadrent to bring a proven, robust and competitively priced compliance solution to the Australasian market.
After an extensive evaluation of the lease accounting vendor marketplace, Quadrent selected IRIS Innervision as its solution offering coupled with a comprehensive knowledge of the leasing industry was superior to anything in the market. IRIS was the ideal partner as it offered a responsive and inclusive alliance that would allow Quadrent to move forward quickly together. Transparency from both parties was an important consideration and proved a decisive factor in Quadrent’s ability to successfully target clients, meet growth objectives and scale at speed.
SOLUTION
In early 2017, Quadrent’s CEO signed the first channel partnership agreement with Innervision by IRIS.
The partnership covered the system delivery and implementation, hosting environments, data centers, and collaboration on system developments. IRIS provided a dedicated team of enterprise accountants and solution architects to orchestrate activities.
As part of the onboarding process, a training program was provided that ensured Quadrent were able to become self-sufficient in the delivery of system implementations and support in its domestic and APAC markets.
The partnership allowed Quadrent to provide cutting-edge lease accounting technology to its existing and new customers without the associated challenges and expenses of having to develop their own software. In return, IRIS has been able to gain a market-leading position in providing an IFRS 16 software solution in a region that would have been more difficult to achieve without Quadrent as a channel partner.
Stefan Iggo, CFO of Quadrent explains, “This quickly developed into a really close partnership. We had excellent support from IRIS during both the onboarding process and customer implementation.
“From the beginning, it felt more like a collaboration rather than your traditional vendor partnership. If you look at the relationship that Quadrent and IRIS have now, the two companies have a fantastic synergy and work together to form a great partnership.”
THE PARTNERSHIP IN ACTION – THE RESULTS
With the partnership now over three years old, its impact is obvious. Over the first two years, Quadrent secured more than 50 customers as a channel partner.
The IRIS lease accounting software has proven to be an effective solution for APAC companies of all sizes and from a range of industries such as agriculture, mining, retail trade, education and training, manufacturing and transport, to name a few.
The solution has also helped differentiate Quadrent in the Australasian market. It is currently the only company in the sector offering leasing expertise and an accounting solution. Coming from this foundation of accounting expertise rather than a stock-standard software as a service (SaaS) roll-out, the partnership between IRIS and Quadrent has benefited some of the largest companies across the region.
As a value-added reseller, Quadrent has been able to generate new revenue streams as the solution has provided an effective platform to engage with new customers or cross-selling opportunities. It has allowed Quadrent to improve customer satisfaction and retention and encourages increased customer lifetime value by achieving deeper integration in a customer’s business.
Aside from the headline business opportunities, Quadrent also benefited from the expert product and technical support mechanisms provided by the IRIS team. Helping to ensure it obtains the most out of the technology and has access to a level of support needed to assist its customers.
During the first three years of engagement, Quadrent has secured over 70 customers – significantly more than its original target of 30. The IRIS solution is now the market-leading IFRS 16 accounting solution in APAC and the choice of blue-chip companies including Fletcher Building, QBE, Canon, Tassal, NRMA, Delegat and Freightways.
The results speak for themselves. Of the sales made over the last three years, 25 percent has been generated from Quadrent’s existing customer base, 40 percent from big-four recommendations and the remainder from marketing activity. All areas of additional revenue have exceeded expectation and highlights the success of both Quadrent’s go-to-market strategy, and the growth opportunities presented by the partnership.
The partnership has also helped contribute towards Quadrent’s significant revenue growth. To date, revenues have increased by over 100 percent on expectations, over the past three years. The total cost of the partnership has impacted overall profitability, and more significantly, reduced the cost of new customer acquisition.
The alliance has been equally as successful for IRIS, enabling the Group to build upon its global capabilities and lead with mission-critical, compliance-driven software expertise in new international markets.
BENEFITS TO QUADRENT CUSTOMERS
It is not only IRIS and Quadrent that have benefited from the partnership. Quadrent’s customers have also profited from the engagement. Firstly, by utilizing the solution to satisfy critical compliance objectives; and secondly by driving business benefits beyond compliance such as enhanced governance of the leasing process. The cost savings have been driven by greater portfolio visibility and operational benefits such as reduced risk and improved strategic leasing decisions.
From Quadrents customer survey, a client talks about LOIS: “It is much easier to analyze what financial implication we will have if the current lease is terminated and the new lease is adopted. Saves time during the month-end process and keeps all contracts and amortization schedule together so much easier for audit and less paper documentation.
THE BENEFITS – DELIVERING BUSINESS VALUE
The partnership has been designed to help Quadrent extend its reach within its core markets, to create new business opportunities and ultimately deliver corporate value to customers. It creates a deeper, more collaborative relationship with IRIS and helps support future growth for all involved.
Stefan Iggo continues, “Our partnership with IRIS has become a real model of success for Quadrent. It has enabled us to deliver essential compliance solutions to our customers and has significantly contributed to sustainable revenue growth.”
Further benefits include:
Scale with Ease
The channel partner model provides the ability to upscale as required by demand and allows Quadrent to sell a proven solution that is quick and easy to roll out and implement.
Tailored Framework
The partnership framework is designed to fit the business needs of both parties and is tailored to meet the unique requirements of the Australasian and APAC markets.
Increase Revenue & Drive Profits
The creation of new customer acquisition, upselling and cross-selling opportunities enables Quadrent to expand its offerings and generate new revenue streams for driving strategic growth objectives.
Opportunity to Differentiate
The alliance has enabled Quadrent to highlight its unique value proposition to its existing and future customers as well as create a powerful point of differentiation within its core markets.
Seamless Integration
Established integrations with well-known ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle have enabled Quadrent’s customers to easily automate the creation of general ledger journal entries and manage their monthly close with ease.
Globally Recognized Solution
The Innervision by IRIS solution is recognized by the Big Four (PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte) Accounting & Global Outsourcing Firms. As a reseller, Quadrent has been able to build upon and develop closer working relationships with the Big Four auditing firms to drive further referral and new revenue opportunities.
Total Flexibility & Control
The partnership design enables Quadrent to own the customer contract and the entire customer lifecycle. This enables enhanced customer service, increased operational flexibility, and aids the delivery of essential compliance solutions to its customers – ultimately putting Quadrent in complete control of how it works with its end customers.
Stefan Iggo concludes, “Our relationship with IRIS continues to go from strength to strength, especially as the product continues to evolve and as new functionality becomes available. As a Channel Partner, we have always felt in control and valued.”
IRIS’ channel partnership model is designed to work and grow with you. Partner with IRIS and create new revenue opportunities, extend your market reach and deliver great value to your customers.
To find out how IRIS Innervision can add new revenue streams to your business model contact: sales-innervision@irisglobal.com
