A catalyst for technological change
Catalytic Solutions is a full-service software development house working predominantly in the events and commercial sectors . Access spoke to MD Craig Hunter about the company ’ s evolution and the capabilities of its tech offering
What is the story behind Catalytic Solutions , how , when and why was the business launched ? The Catalytic backstory actually starts some 40-odd years ago here in the UK with a local code master , John Peck , who started a company called Abbey Crown with the aim of developing bespoke software . As luck would have it , he found several clients in the events industry early on , and for whom he has been developing a code base ever since . One that he had never even considered bringing to the open market , despite successfully managing more than 100 shows with over 15,000 trade stands and 50,000 exhibitors without fail .
John is 83 , incidentally , and still codes every other day , using InterSystems IRIS no less . The platform won Data Driven Product of the Year at the National Technology Awards this year .
To have that level of mental acuity at his age is a marvel .
When did you start working with John ? In South Africa , 2019 , I was building digital journeys for a local liquor brand that was experiencing massive problems with the cloning of their existing event ticketing systems . I was simultaneously working in an advisory capacity for the British / Irish Lions rugby tour to South Africa . I was really struggling to find a comprehensive digital solution to manage these things , and eventually found John and his event management toolset . I was simply blown away by the scope of the functionality he had assembled over the years . At that point I discovered John was in semiretirement , if you can call it that , with the exception of one client who he was servicing . One which had been paperless for the past 25 years . Having seen the opportunity to come to the UK and drive this amazing software into the public domain , I started making my way over to Wiltshire , where John is based . We ended up working together across half the globe for about six months before I landed in 2020 . I ’ m currently the head of global marketing and manage the day-to-day business of the company .
Catalytic Solutions is a recent evolution then ? Yes . It has been an incredible journey over the past two years – one of discovery and reinvention . Nothing could have prepared me for the code base . Like I said , the software itself has an evolving history of 40-plus years . When I arrived , I discovered the build had accumulated more than 3,000 modules most of which were for one-off events that had never been used again . I ’ m still discovering new modules . The reality , I soon realised , was that the software was bundled with so much functionality . Ironically , that made it difficult to sell . It was beyond feature rich and simply had too many tools for any single event type . Our existing name , Abbey Crown , also didn ’ t say much about what we had to offer . So , we decided to look at an official rebrand to take to market .
What inspired the name ? The inspiration for Catalytic came from John , who has always acted as a catalyst for change in developing software for
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