| Acquired by | Advanced Computer Software |
| Price | £100M |
| Date | 2/10 |
| Website | coasolutions.com |
| Blog | coasolutions.com/... |
| @coasolutions | |
| Category | Software |
| Phone | 0845 160 6162 |
| Employees | 500 |
| Description | COA Solutions is a supplier of integrate |
COA Solutions is a supplier of integrated business management and information systems to public, private and not-for-profit organisations in the service sector.
The original company, Cedardata was founded in 1983.Most business was transacted through this company in the first half of the 1990s by which time it had been renamed to Cedar plc. Its subsidiary, now named COA Solutions Limited, increasingly took over as the prime trading company.
Cedar plc was fully quoted on the London Stock Exchange (CED.L). It had grown both organically and by acquisition. From its roots in the financial software market it acquired companies in the call centre software; data warehousing and data migration; document management and workflow; and content management arenas to deliver knowledge-based enterprise business solutions.
Cedar developed practical solutions around e-Business, customer relationship management (CRM) and knowledge management initiatives. Examples include content value management, eProcurement, enterprise portals and financial management.
These solutions were available through traditional installations, fully outsourced or delivered via the Internet using the Application Service Provision (ASP) model.
The customer base spanned the public sector (central government, local government and the National Health Service), telecommunications, major financial services organisations and significant commercial companies.
January 2002
Cedar and its subsidiaries were acquired by Redac Limited through funding from Alchemy Partners.
2003
COA Solutions (then named Cedar Enterprise Solutions) purchases Goldenhill Ltd in order to offer human capital management (HCM) solutions to its clients.
In 2002, a management buy out by the UK management team of Elevon creates Arelon Limited with rights in the Enterprise Software Suite formerly owned by Walker International. This buy out was funded by Alchemy, In January 2003 Arelon and Cedar Enterprise Solutions merge and rebrand to CedAr.
2004
The newly branded CedAr purchases OpenAccounts Ltd to broaden its offering to commercial and business services clients. The customer number rises to 1,200 and headcount to 350. In a report published this year, CedAR ranks third in the UK Financial Management Systems vendor list compiled by Gartner Dataquest. The company wins the Accountancy Age Award for Best Enterprise Software Package for the second time. The company rebrands itself as CedarOpenAccounts in June 2004.
2006
CedarOpenAccounts purchases Grampian Software Ltd and its OpenPeople HR and Payroll solutions. It brings 300 customers. Driven by a customer requirement for additional reporting and analytic capabilities CedarOpenAccounts goes on to purchase Strata Systems, a business intelligence and HR analytics software vendor based in Ipswich. The acquisition sees Strata’s BI software products integrated into CedarOpenAccounts’ Smart Business Suite of products.
2007
CedarOpenAccounts acquired BI Inform[5], a specialist reseller of Cognos Business Intelligence software based in Harrogate. The deal expands the company’s presence in the BI market as one of the top three resellers of Cognos-based solutions in the UK. This is followed by the purchase of long-term business partner Version One. CedarOpenAccounts and Version One have been partners since 1997 and already have more than 250 shared accounts. The staff number now exceeds 450 and customers 3000. Version One retains its brand identity. The rest of the business is united under the CedarOpenAccounts brand.
2008
The acquisitions of eProcurement company Belmin[6] in February 2008 and HR specialist ASR Computers in April 2008[7] are completed. This adds additional capabilities in the Health sector and adds further HR and Payroll capabilities to their Smart Business Suite. The staff number is now 500 and customers are now 4000. COA is rebranded COA Solutions and adopts a new ‘closer to your business’ brand identity. Belmin immediately adopted the COA Solutions brand, whilst ASR adopted a transitional strategy.
2009
ASR rebrands as COA Solutions coming fully under the COA Solutions brand identity.
