IT firm sees itself set fair for growth in customers and innovation
Burgeoning transport and logistics IT firm WiseTech is set to roll an internal innovation to its central CargoWise One platform.
It is also planning new modules aimed at warehouse intralogistics and adding hardware components to complement its software, such as telematics devices.
The company says it is setting about building next-generation productivity tools.
One of those is ‘Glow’, a development tested and used in-house.
The idea was to build a product that could run on any modern platform without multiple development costs and allow non-technical staff to build products and deploys to any operating system on any device.
“Right now, we use Glow internally to create our own software and build our platform quickly,” CEO Richard White says.
Added to CargoWise One, Glow aims to allow customers to configure that platform, or even their customers’ access, to match their specific needs, and thereby reduce costs, increase productivity and raise transaction throughput.
For the company it means setting up Glow as a ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS) offering that will broaden its appeal beyond transport and logistics to allow customer-driven customisation in any workflow-driven industry, including manufacturing, finance, mining, construction and administration.
WiseTech secured one of the biggest Australian stock exchange floats this financial year in April, valuing it at more than $1 billion and raising $125 million in funds.
Since then, as part of its global geographic and market expansion strategy, it has added Australia and New Zealand airline messaging distributor, Cargo Community Network, to its portfolio, along with a number of developments in China, Germany and South Africa.
This week, WiseTech reported a promising annual result marred by hefty one-off costs related to listing on the Australian Securities Exchange that saw net profits down 79 per cent to $2.17 million, instead of the $14.2 million it otherwise would have been.
Revenue was 47 per cent up, however, to $102.8 million.
The company highlights greater existing customer revenue growth, to $15.1 million from $7.2 million growth the year before.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was up 44 per cent to $31.5 million.
Growth was generated from our large customer base “increasing their use of CargoWise One, adding transactions, users and geographies and moving into more modules
“We expanded further our global rollout program with the world’s largest global forwarding groups including DSV, Geodis, Yusen, Mainfreight, OHL and JAS, and by signing a contract with DHL Global Forwarding which commenced on 1 July 2016 and is expected to deliver $60m of revenue over 4.5 years.”
The company is also bullish about the rest of the new financial year.
“This year’s strong performance, combined with 98 per cent recurring revenue, an annual attrition rate of less than 1 per cent, earnings contribution from recent acquisitions and continued growth across our global operations, affirms that we are on track to exceed our FY17 Prospectus forecast for revenue of $135 million,” White says.
“We are expecting revenue growth for FY17 of 43 per cent to 50 per cent and therefore have upgraded our guidance for FY17 for revenue to a range of $148 million to $155 million and for EBITDA, a range of $50 million to $53 million.”