The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 48: April/May 2020 | Page 27

THE TECHIES
Thrings Meets... Ashley McIntyre,
Managing Director at Evo-soft
What makes an excellent software developer?
Managing Director of Techies 2019 winner, Evo-soft,
explains it to Kate Westbrook, awards judge and Tech
Lead at commercial law firm Thrings.
How would you describe your
business in two sentences?
Imagine an accounts system that seamlessly
marries operations, sales and support to the
manufacturing, warehousing and distribution
parts of the business - successfully and
accountably. In technical speak, Evo-
soft develops and implements a unique
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution
underpinned by Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central (formerly NAV) specialised
toward importation, wholesalers, producers
and distributors across multiple verticals.
What’s your customer base?
While we’re best known for our work with
auctioneers (and our Evo-Auction product),
this only makes up around 12 per cent of
what we do. More than half of our customers
are importers and exporters and the
software we develop is often multi-currency
and multi-language. Much of our work
comes off the back of recommendations
and so we’ve added some pure financial
customers and even a restaurant chain to
our portfolio!
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re currently working on a variety of
projects for new clients, and a host of new
extensions (add-ons) for Dynamics 365
Business Central, which is Microsoft’s new
(and more affordable) ERP option for small
to medium sized companies.
You started trading in 2001.
Tell us about your journey
I’m a chartered management accountant
who, throughout my career, trialled (and at
one point even sold) accounting software.
I was inspired to create software solutions
that truly worked for the customer. We
started in what was a broom cupboard in
the Shaftsbury Centre: me, my business
partner and two members of staff. Evo-soft
grew steadily and organically without taking
on unnecessary debt, which is an important
lesson learnt in my accounting days.
You now have more than 50 employees.
What do you put that growth down to?
Hard graft (personally working silly hours
at the beginning) and building good
partnerships with our customers. We don’t
just put the system in place and forget about
it. We work truly collaboratively with our
clients to solve their ever-changing business
needs as they grow and achieve greater
results.
What qualities do you need
in your line of work?
Other than being technically accomplished,
you must be interested in the client, their
business and fully understand what their
desired outcome is. We aren’t yes people;
we challenge when we don’t understand,
and push back if we believe there is a more
appropriate way to achieve the objective.
Getting that right means that the rest will
follow. What helps is to have a broader
experience than just programming. Things
like sociology, accounting, logistics,
engineering and even user experience go
a long way at Evo-soft. This is what we
continue to build on with our team today.
Your biggest challenges as
a business are…?
Finding offices with enough parking,
followed by sourcing those multi-skilled
people I just described!
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Crikey! I don’t get a lot of it unfortunately.
I used to enjoy running but still take my
three dogs out. One is a speedy Romanian
rescue with a missing a leg. He only seems
to realise it when he does a quick turn and
topples over.
What has being part of the
Techies meant to you?
It was great to be a winner at the Techies
2019 in the Using Tech to Transform
Business category. It’s important to have
a local focus on technology and beneficial
to understand what other tech is going on
across Wiltshire. I felt it was really important
to get involved. The awards were a great
validation of the work we’ve been doing and
we’ve even had customers say how good it
was to see this recognised.
@EvoSoftUK
@ThringsLaw
For more info:
www.evo-soft.co.uk
www.thrings.com
is proud to sponsor
The Techies 2020 -
Celebrating Swindon & Wiltshire’s
vibrant tech community
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2020
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