R&D Vision

Q&A – Nigel Casperd, Technical Director, MNP

How does MNP’s R&D function differ from other competitors?

MNP is a technically driven company - we probably invest more in R&D than any other company in our sector. In fact, 90% of our staff are technical and this has resulted in software that is typically three years ahead of our competitors. Yes, it comes at a price but market leadership is essential to our long term future.

If you are so technically focused, does this compromise your understanding of market needs?

Quite the reverse. We’re not just a software house that develops software for this particular market place, we write software for the marketplace because we understand it. We know how it works. We know the mechanics of how to get the best the best out of a system for a company.

It also means that our knowledge base is second to none. Talk to anyone in the industry, they value our expertise in the subject matter. MNP is a hothouse of ideas, skill and expertise which is forging ahead and making new technology that makes a huge difference to the profitability and efficiency of direct commerce businesses.

Isn't the functionality of direct commerce systems now so mature that little R&D is required? 

Are you just tidying up the edges?

Yes, its true that the core functionality of these systems is now reasonably mature and doesn’t change very much – apart, of course, from the tailoring of each solution to meet each clients specific needs – but it’s the external environment in which the software is used which is constantly changing and where much of our R&D effort is applied.

Take for example the different technical challenges of porting the software across to an Oracle system or a web server – both these platforms are evolving and we need to ensure that we keep totally on top of these environmental interfaces to ensure that our clients have access to the latest advances to keep their competitive edge.

Obviously, this external environment is being driven by the radical improvements and reliability of comms. Companies are now evaluating whether this is sufficiently stable to move ‘mission critical’ systems from a client server application to a hosted web server platform. Again, our R&D effort is focussing on future proofing our systems so that our customers have a complete range of options to fit their business model.

So, what else is in development at the moment?

We’re not in the position of having to reactively develop software to meet market needs on a ‘just in time’ basis – we’re far beyond that. By working with market leaders and listening to what they want we’ve been able to pioneer many developments that have now become industry standards. In fact our R&D investment is based on a five year rolling programme which is a mixture of strategic developments and ensuring that we keep on top of these external ‘environmental’ changes….

OK, so what’s in the five year plan?

Well, without giving away too much of our thinking, it’s safe to say that most providers are looking at delivering their systems on a ‘Software as a Service’ hosted basis and we will also be looking at this very closely.

We will also be adding a wider range of services so that we can become a ‘one stop shop’. A good example of this is web development. Clients come to us for their order, warehouse and purchase management solutions but have to go somewhere else for a web site and often find it difficult to find a partner with the skills to deliver advanced e-commerce sites. So we are currently in the process of building a technically driven web development centre that can offer a very compelling proposition to both existing and new clients.

On a topically relevant note we are aiming to be one of the first companies in the UK to deliver a PA-DSS certified payment gateway soon after the standard is ratified (there are still no auditors for these standard as of July 2008) and a long time ahead of the proposed 2010 mandatory date.

There are also some other exciting ‘one stop shop’ developments under wraps that we hope to launch next year – but that’s all I can say for the moment……