For the first time in 25 years IT services giant Kainos has a new chief at the helm.
Brendan Mooney joined the now listed Kainos as a trainee engineering back in 1989, and in the years since helped grow the Belfast-headquartered business into a company with truly global reach and international footprint.
With a workforce approaching 3,000 – many based here but with huge employment footprints across Europe and the US – it’s now headed by Russell Sloan.
It remains one of the stalwarts of our booming IT and technology sector – helping position Northern Ireland on the world stage.
“Our latest results, record our 14th consecutive year of growth with disciplined execution in the current macro-economic climate,” he said.
“We have been focused on our operational performance, maintaining the appropriate balance between growth, international expansion, investment for the future and profitability.”
Kainos is now a £382m company, placing it at the number 29 spot on this year’s Ulster Business Top 100 Northern Ireland Companies, in association with KPMG.
It posted statutory pre-tax profits of £64.8m for the year ending March 2024 – up on the £52.9m a year earlier.
It counts the NHS in the UK among its customers and has specialist divisions, digital services and Workday Practice. Digital services develops and supports IT service platforms for public sector, commercial and healthcare customers.
“Notwithstanding the global economic uncertainty, we believe that our largest business areas, Workday Products, Workday Services, and the public sector segment of Digital Services (together, 80% of revenue) will continue to deliver growth, in both the near term and medium term,” it says
Kainos, which is currently based at Upper Crescent off Botanic Avenue in south Belfast, is making way to develop a new flagship office at the site of the former Dublin Road cinema.
Plans will see it break ground this autumn with the aim of moving into the new development by 2027.
Breaking down the key numbers it says overall bookings stood at £424.5m for the year, with strong contracted backlog growth of 11% to £357.1m and year-end cash of £126m
“We are grateful for the support and trust that our customers continue to place in Kainos to deliver their critical projects,” Mr Sloan said.
“Customer satisfaction levels are high, and one of the best measures of that satisfaction is the high level of repeat business which we receive from our customers. Our excitement is increasing about our Workday Products division.
“This year’s excellent performance is another significant step towards our goal of £100m annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2026. We are further delighted that our fourth and latest product, Employee Document Management, has been our most successful product launch to date, with 26 international clients already signed up.
“We remain confident there will be further opportunities to develop new, innovative products as we continue to engage closely with Workday and with our customers.”
The firm has increased its workforce to almost 3,000 based across 14 global offices.
Mr Sloan said the firm’s digital services division has “seen a solid performance with consistent demand from public sector clients, strong growth in our core healthcare business (excluding pandemic related revenue) despite a reduction in our commercial business”.
“Meanwhile, there has been good growth in our Workday Services division where we continue to be the leading Workday partner in Europe and have phase one partner status in both the US and Canada.
“Despite the ongoing global economic uncertainty, we believe that our largest business areas, Workday Products, Workday Services and the public sector segment of Digital Services, will continue to be resilient and will offer substantial growth opportunities in both the near term and medium term.
“We are well positioned within these markets, both locally and, increasingly, internationally, and we remain confident in our strategy. What underpins that confidence is the talent and ability of our people. We continue to invest in their development and can rely on their expertise and energy to drive our success.”
Looking to the year ahead, it says it expects “a return to growth for our healthcare business”.
“This will be offset in the near term by further modest reductions in revenues from our commercial sector customers within digital services, but we expect a return to growth for our commercial sector customers in the medium term.”