4 | Triad Group Plc Annual Report and Accounts 2022
Strategic report
Microsoft SharePoint migration activity, various software
delivery projects, and the roll-out of communication facilities
across wide swathes of this significant Government
organisation.
At Department for Transport, our team is developing a
system to help fuel suppliers manage their renewable fuel
obligations. This project epitomises Triad’s expert approach
to making robust digital services that help Government
enact and implement legislation in the shape of modern,
maintainable solutions. Indeed, we were delighted to have
our work with DfT short-listed at the BCS/UK IT Industry
awards for the “best public sector project”.
The multi-year association with our policing client continued
throughout the period, allowing us to provide expert
technical capability and delivery management capacity to
help modernise the systems being used to support front-line
law enforcement.
Within the private sector, highlights included the complex
software and platform engineering work we undertook for
Westcoast Holdings Ltd, helping one of the UK’s biggest
technology distributors to avail themselves of best practice
around the introduction of automated delivery pipelines
within a very demanding operational environment. At
Renewable Energy Systems we played a key role in helping
them successfully complete the on-time sale of their French
operation, now known as Q-Energy and the latest client to
join the Triad fold. Our long-running association with leading
law firm Foot Anstey continued, and during the period we
provided continuing strategic advice to the oce of the
Chief Technology Ocer and some advanced innovation
around the use of data lakes within a legal practice.
In the non-profit sector, we have been working with Marine
Stewardship Council to develop a highly functional prototype
for their fishery assessment process. This drew heavily on
our user research and user experience practice, who have
been very active during the year highlighting across multiple
channels the importance of UR/UX in good digital services.
Our work has been recognised through a number of
client nominations, short-listing in national and regional
competitions, and through partner accreditations. We were
delighted to win the Tech Company of the Year award
at the Global Business Tech Awards. One of the few UK
consultancies with seven Microsoft Gold competencies,
we are also one of only a handful of Workpoint partners in
the UK. We have been continuing to explore the application
of blockchain as a technology with our partner Stratis, and
sponsored their hackathon event to encourage teams to
develop innovative ways of exploiting the technology.
Managing Director’s statement
Adrian Leer
Profit in the year increased to £1.1m representing significant
progress with the strategy to concentrate the Group’s eorts
on its consultancy oering, serviced by permanent fee
earning consultants. This was underscored by improvements
in gross margin percentage, up to 28.1% from 21.4% in the
previous year. Revenue declined by £0.8m to £17.0m due
to the reduction of lower-margin contractor assignments.
Indeed, consulting revenue increased by 70% versus
previous year. Cash reserves increased by £0.4m to £5.3m.
The Group experienced no trading bad debts and had no
external funding requirements.
Business commentary
The Group’s profit reflects the hard work of our expanding
team as we continue on our journey to become one of the UK’s
favourite technology consultancies. Our consultant headcount
increased by 37, all of whom were sourced via our internal team
and colleague referrals. Many of these new recruits helped
to fulfil demand on key services, including Ministry of Justice,
Department for BEIS, and Department for Transport.
Our services continued to be provided on a predominantly
remote basis due to the restrictions of the pandemic.
A benefit of the now-established remote working model
has been our ability to attract sta from areas across the
UK, including Cardi, Aberdeen and Bristol. Our virtual on-
boarding process has been hailed by sta as best-in-class
and reflects our determination to oer something dierent to
consultants joining the business.
The majority of our work centred around significant
engagements with existing clients, some of which were at
the early stages of development at the beginning of the year.
At Ministry of Justice, we have been increasing the size of
our project management and PMO team to cope with the
delivery of 30+ projects during the year. Our consultants
have been involved in successful delivery across a broad
spectrum of projects including work on the Nightingale
courts, prison estate expansion, and youth education
services. Elsewhere at MOJ, our business analysis service
continued to provide a core capability to the Crime
programme as the Common Platform rolled out across the
courts of England and Wales. In June, we completed the
transition of the PSD service on the Crime programme to
the new service provider marking a successful multi-year
engagement where Triad teams established the operations
capability for this critical platform.
During the year, we also grew the number of consultants
supporting a variety of initiatives at Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy. Projects included significant