1) Developing outstanding software - what are their points of difference? It tells us what they do, not what they do better.
Their points of difference are: focus and deeply committed relationships.
They cultivate deep, focused relationships that take years & years to evolve & build out from functionality from changing requirements which they then promulgate (i.e. cross-sell) to other clients. A very good example is their long term relationship with the DoD. No one else can do what they do for the DoD. They are a preferred supplier. This is a fantastic reference site.
2) Growth within customers - They say they grow within their client base, but don't explain how, does it happen by magic?
They grow by leveraging their relationships (see point 1) to cross-sell compelling solutions that they have developed elsewhere. Think of MS Office. It's really damn useful (although I must say I resent paying a yearly subscription), in fact I would say "necessary" to run a business. It's like having the rights to tithe every single wheel produced on the planet. Well, OCL have set about to provide a similar set of coherent services, except in the field of governance (i.e. by actual state/federal governments or by large corporate environments which are so big they are like a "country unto themselves") and their interoperability with external stakeholders.
3) Grow number of customers - Shows what they do and this is probably best point of presentation, but what are their channels?
I'd have to think about this a bit more to answer properly, but off the top of my head - they use HP and MS channels.
4) Geographic expansion - Not bad, but how do they choose where to expand?
Similar governmental processes/frameworks. You will notice they are all commonwealth countries. Their products are really tailored to the process of governance.
5) Growth through acquisition - What is their strategy? complementary products? competing products?
They do have competition (TNE, for example, operates in their space), but they don't buy out competing products. Instead, they make small, bolt-on acquisitions that can "add/extend" their reach and buy them outright; and then bring these services back under a coherent framework/offering.
They are trying to create a broadly compelling set of services/products that ease the pain-points (like MS Office) around the problems (intra/inter relationships) of:
1) self-governance: actual state/federal governments or large corporate bodies, enabling them to control/disseminate information and essentially "run" themselves;
2) external-governance: managing the recipients of said governance and how they are enabled to interact with the governing body;
3) 3rd-party/external stakeholders: introduced by the governing bodies to provide points 1 & 2.
No. I'm not an employee. Although I very nearly was once . I was so impressed I went out and "bought the company". That was over 10 years ago now.
They are a stellar "business".
OCL Price at posting:
$2.78 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
. I was so impressed I went out and "bought the company". That was over 10 years ago now.
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