Marlowe plc (MRL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Marlowe compliance software events. I think most people in the room know me already, but for those who don't, I'm Alex Dacre, Group Chief Executive. Today's event is intended to provide you with a detailed look at our compliance software proposition and to showcase the selection of our key SaaS platforms. We hope it will provide insights into the value we're building for our clients and shareholders through the delivery of our digital strategy. Our compliance software platforms are used by clients to implement their governance frameworks and to manage, monitor, audit and control the risk, compliance and performance of their organizations. Software has become a central part of our proposition, now accounting for nearly 1/4 of our profits and just over 9% of our revenues. And in support of the acceleration of our organic growth in recent periods, our digital products now serve over 3 million users. And on a stand-alone basis, Marlowe's compliance software division would be one of the largest GRC software businesses in the U.K. We first entered the software market at the end of 2018 via the acquisition of William Martin and its market-leading proprietary health and safety platform, Meridian. Since then, we've broadened our digital offering to both support our existing consulting services as well as to provide stand-alone compliance SaaS in new compliance verticals. Our return on invested capital in SaaS is running at about 12%, which we consider attractive and compares favorably to our software peer group, especially when you consider the early stage these businesses are out in their period under Marlowe ownership. These returns will continue to improve as we benefit from our continued fast organic growth. And not only are these platforms growing at a fast rate, but they benefit from highly attractive investment characteristics. We're able to add additional users with a low incremental cost to deliver, which leads to margin expansion. Revenues are locked in to long-term subscriptions, and we achieved net retention rates of over 100%. Taken as a whole, our SaaS platforms are now providing an almost end-to-end solution to our clients' governance, risk and compliance strategies. For instance, customers rely on our risk and compliance software to track and report regulatory risks such as anti-money laundering, DAC6 tax regulation or know your customer requirements across their organization. Our contractor management platform, Elogbooks, monitors compliance standards as service providers working at our clients' premises. It gives them real-time visibility. They were one of the biggest areas of risk in a commercial organization. And since the Elogbooks joined the group in 2020, we've developed and launched Prosure360 to verify and accredit contractors, and we've integrated the platform with Meridian, creating an integrated health and safety and supply chain compliance proposition. Our digital EHS solutions [ police ] and promote safety in the workplace, recording incidents and highlighting areas of noncompliance. Our compliance eLearning platforms are playing an ever more important role for companies in ensuring their staff are compliant across diverse topics such as inclusion, GDPR and health and safety. Our HR software addresses employee relations and compliance issues from absence management to disciplinary, and it creates an auditory record of actions taken. Individually, our digital products are leading in their niches. But together, they offer a comprehensive solution of regulatory data and information, enterprise risk management, compliance eLearning, employee well-being and governance audits and workflow tools, which we're increasingly connecting and cross-selling. And as a group, we're positioned very favorably to benefit from the further digitalization of the compliance landscape. We see a long-term opportunity to transform our markets through greater adoption of software and digital applications. Today, we want to share with you how software is playing a larger role in ensuring compliance for our customers and increasing Marlowe's competitive advantage. Being able to deliver software alongside service provides us with a major advantage against our service or software-only competitors. Our consultancy and advisory services help our clients to understand and audit their compliance obligations, which can then be tracked manually and controlled via our software. And we find that clients that take both software and service from our group, achieve much higher standards of compliance. So software support is our service strategy tool. One of our key value adds is that our software is built by developers who are able to collaborate closely with industry expert colleagues who live and breathe these areas. It's developed by practitioners with huge end-market expertise. And as our applications become more closely integrated, we can share content, modules and integrate functionality. Intelligence tools can be linked to GRC SaaS, and eLearning can be linked to individual risks within our health and safety software, prompting the user to engage with a particular eLearning course. Before the product demos today, we'll hear from 2 speakers. Firstly, Paul Cadwallader, our SVP of Digital Platforms and Partnerships, will provide an overview of the GRC software market, the trends driving it and how Marlowe is well positioned to address these trends. Paul will be followed by Peter Bell, our group CTO, who will elaborate on how we're driving growth in Marlowe's software business via organic initiatives and driving collaboration across our platforms. We'll then be showcasing 3 of our products: VinciWorks, our compliance eLearning business; Corestream, our enterprise risk management solution; and Barbour EHS, our regulatory information platform. Vinci joined the group in 2021 and was acquired for an EV of GBP 54 million. Over the past few years, via the acquisition and the integration of 5 separate eLearning SaaS platforms, we've built a U.K. market-leading position in the highly attractive eLearning compliance market, which is a vital part of the compliance journey, enabling our clients to train their staff, buy our software, in essential regulatory fields and workplace standards, in areas like health and safety, code of conduct or GDPR. Vinci is a platform that we're building upon. It's used by some of the world's largest organizations and 60 of the top 100 law firms operating in the U.K. and internationally. Next, you'll experience the Corestream platform. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in this building, Corestream supports organizations with corporate compliance and risk management needs. It's a leader in the U.K.'s attractive GRC software market, which is experiencing significant growth, driven by clients' demands for improved governance and risk management to address the increasing exposure to new and expanding regulation. And finally, Barbour, which we acquired from Informa Plc in August '21 for GBP 32 million. Since the successful carve-out of the business, Barbour's integrated into our GRC division. In combination with our portfolio of compliance software products, the Barbour platforms enables us to offer clients with complete regulatory solution, which enhances their visibility and understanding of evolving standards and regulations and assist them in managing their environmental health and safety risks. Barbour delivers our clients access to regulatory compliance data, advice and insights on a subscription basis via software. If you're a health and safety director of a large organization, it's an indispensable tool to help you perform your duties in a legally compliant way. We're split into 3 groups and conduct a speed-dating style demo of these products over three 25-minute sessions. Within those sessions, you'll have the chance to ask questions about the products and their product road maps. We'll then regather downstairs and the head of our WorkNest business, Gavin Snell, will explain how a combined software and consulting proposition is giving us a competitive edge in the HR and safety compliance market by making our relationships stickier and delivering enhanced compliance outcomes. After that, there'll be an opportunity to spend some time with the presenters and some of their head office team over drinks so they can answer any further questions that you might have. So without further ado, let me pass you on to Paul Cadwallader, SVP of Digital Platforms and Partnerships, to present on the GRC software market.

Thanks, Alex. So I'm Paul Cadwallader, and I joined the Marlowe Group just over 6 months ago. Before joining Marlowe, I was at Deloitte for nearly 20 years. I was a partner within Deloitte, and led GRC technology within their risk advisory service line. I'm going to give you some insights into the market, share the trends driving GRC software and explain why Marlowe is well positioned in the market. So first of all, on to the GRC software definition. The official definition of GRC is that GRC is a capability to reliably achieve objectives, Governance; address uncertainty, Risk Management; and act with integrity, Compliance. It starts with governance and setting objectives, whether that's at the group, the entity, the division, the project, the asset level and defining structures for the organization. From Governance flows the context to begin and do risk management. ISO 31000 defines risk as the effect of uncertainty on objectives. And then compliance is the follow-through to ensure we stay within ethical, regulatory, ESG and even risk boundaries. Compliance actually verifies that controls are put in place to mitigate risk, they're operational and they're effective. So I'm just briefly going to touch upon the addressable market. So global revenues for GRC software experienced healthy growth in 2021, growing 8.2% year-over-year. The pandemic and other subsequent events highlighted the need for better coordinated GRC solutions, which is driving further investment. A new forecast from International Data Corporation, IDC, shows global GRC revenues growing from $11.3 billion in 2021 to nearly $15.2 billion in 2026. So I'm going to cover some of the macro drivers and trends and then the software requirement trends that are coming through in the market. So people, in terms of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer, want to buy and deal with and work for responsible businesses. Employees are increasingly becoming a driver and specifically around well-being in their wider social demands. Being a responsible business is not only about external factors, but also internal factors. Governments and regulators are responding to societal demands with increasing regulatory requirements that are broad as well as both for industry and functionally specific. Business leadership recognizes the importance of managing risk and being seen as responsible. They're therefore investing. And events in recent times have highlighted the need for resilience and the ability to manage risks of differing natures. Agile organizations that can manage risk are those that have responded best to the challenges faced. Increasing fines and reputational damage for noncompliance and excessive risk taking is one of the final macro trends. Now these macro drivers increasingly apply to almost any organization in any sector. They need to manage risk and compliance not only for global organizations, but small and medium enterprises and keeps progressing down to ever smaller businesses. In terms of the trend around software requirements, this is becoming an increased demand for centralized and integrated risk management across all compliance and risk domains, driven by executives need to have a holistic view of risk. It continues to expand from corporate compliance to HR, environmental health and safety, ESG, supply chain, cyber and other areas. And the ability to track progress on remediating risks and issues, having a completely auditable capability to support audits for stakeholders and regulators and the ability to integrate with multiple systems and data sources and the need for 24/7 real-time information on risks and compliance. So if we move on to where is Marlowe positioned in the market now. The broad range of platforms and products within Marlowe helps address a large budget of spend. We cover enterprise and integrated GRC through to functionally specific capabilities such as property management and health and safety. Our capabilities appeal to all buyer pursuing us across an organization's risk and compliance-related functions. Customers increasingly want a single provider of capability to have certainty around connectivity between products and platforms. Our stamp of quality as a group, coupled with our ability to integrate our capabilities via our APIs, meets this market demand. We have some success stories in this space, but also an opportunity to further expand in our clients, appealing to as many [indiscernible] as possible. Organizations increasingly want advisers and consultants alongside the software. We provide this either [ in house ] or through our alliances and partnerships with professional services firms, helping organizations get the best stack of the technology and also to ensure the required business transformation or tailoring of the software will meet their business needs. Our intimate knowledge of the market demands through these client interactions gives us a competitive advantage in the development of our platforms and products, ensuring they will meet the market demand. So next, I will talk about what the market is looking for and what is on the horizon. I spent the majority of my time in the market, talking to buyers of GRC capabilities in its broadest sense. There are 2 key trends and aspects I will cover with respect to where the market is moving and what is on the horizon with respect to demand and capability. First of all, the continued and rapid evolution of GRC and then the entwinement and integration between ESG and GRC. So on the evolution of GRC. To give a sense of where the market is going, we need to understand the journey of GRC. So I'll structure this around each generation, with each generation of GRC being roughly around 5 years and starting in 2002. And this is based on the demands and usage of a typical large, mature organization. So the first generation emerged around the time of SOX. It was actually constrained in its scope as a result of the SOX boom, but very much around risks, controls and policies. Next, we have GRC 2. This is around Enterprise GRC. This is where the broad view of GRC took off and recognition that one platform could offer integration between multiple departments. The challenge was the solutions have different strengths and weaknesses and no one could do everything. We then moved into the third-generation, Enterprise GRC architecture. This is very much where it became apparent that no one platform solve all the challenges, that they have point solutions, best-of-breed, bringing them together. This is where a number of the Marlowe portfolio operates, particularly in the HR and health and safety space. And the most recent stage of GRC technology is what a large proportion of the market is working with, agile GRC. And this technology came about to address the challenges with the third generation. Agile GRC is highly configurable. They engage in both the front office and back office. It doesn't break when you upgrade the coding. Its interfaces are intuitive, engaging and contextually relevant to the users being that they are actually interacting with them. We then move on to cognitive GRC. So that's the fifth generation. It's really emerged in 2022 onwards. So that's really around where GRC is going, and we need to understand organizations need to be more agile and not just resilient. And agility is the ability to see what is coming at the organization, and allow an organization to adjust and navigate to the environment with advantage to seize opportunities whilst avoiding or mitigating hazards and harms. Resiliency is the ability to spring back and recover from an event, minimize loss and exposure. Both of those are needed in today's dynamic business environment. And that's what cognitive GRC is going to help deliver. The cognitive GRC builds on agile GRC, and it leverages cognitive technologies like machine learning, predictive analytics, neural networks, blockchain and so on. Now as I mentioned at the start, larger mature organizations have been through this journey with respect to their technology for GRC, with the leading organizations on GRC 4.0 moving into that fifth generation right now. And we all know that medium-sized organizations generally have a slight lag on the applicability of regulatory topics and supporting technologies. Therefore, today, the mid-market is generally a consumer of that third-generation technology. And as the demands on their risk and compliance activities increase, they will move up to the GRC 4.0 in due course. Marlowe's portfolio of offerings is therefore well placed with that third generation of technology, focusing on the small and medium enterprise market. And then also the fourth generation that we have within the group, with elements of 5 coming through, is focused on the largest and most mature clients. This provides us with a unique capability for the here and now, whilst also having the learning to pass down and move the third-generation technologies into the fourth generation space as their customer base matures. And so briefly moving on to the ESG and GRC integration. So ESG, the E is all about the environmental impact, and it's about the carbon emissions and water use and so forth. Now this is the bit where there's a lot of pending regulations coming through. It's also the area that has a lot of confusion and understanding of what needs to be done in that space. The S part is about social accountability of the organization. And it focuses on things like human slavery, child labor, forced labor, harassment, discrimination and so on. That is the area that has the current greatest reputational impact in the risk to corporate brands. And there's some GRC-related things in there like health and safety and personal privacy. And then the G in the ESG is about the governance, and that's the most mature area of ESG. And it's the area that's got the biggest overlap with GRC. It's around the controls of financial reporting, fraud, anti-bribery, corruption, anti-money laundry and so on. And the challenge for ESG is not just about your traditional bricks and mortar, walls and employees, it's about a modern organization, that's an extended enterprise, or your supply chain. And then an organization cannot address ESG without ensuring shared values and commitments with assurance across its third-party and downstream relationships, and that's driving a large uptick in activity, and therefore, technology in this space. Clarity is starting to appear in the market with respect to ESG and GRC integration as organizations realize what ESG means for their business. The overlap with many GRC topics is becoming clearer, and therefore, driving organizations to seek synergies with their GRC technology purchases. And this is where Agile and Cognitive GRCs will drive performance and value for an organization as they seek to integrate the 2 worlds. The horizon is both exciting and a fast paced for GRC and definitely a significant opportunity for us. I'll now pass on to Peter Bell, who's Marlowe's CTO, and will help you understand how we develop and bring to market our own software products.

Thank you, Paul. My role is all about supporting the acquisition of software business and then helping those software businesses to grow. Within that, I have 3 focuses: Ensuring we have a strong development capability within the group. I'll cover that in a bit more detail in the next few slides. The second area is operational maturity, focusing on such topics as making sure we have a very mature approach to cloud hosting and making sure that cybersecurity is best-of-breed. Clearly, an ever growing area of importance. And then the final part of my role is very much about making sure we have a strong approach to product management and innovation for our software products. Again, I will discuss this in more detail later. A few words about my background as CTO. I am a software developer with a PhD in machine learning, who's been involved in most of his career in developing new software products. I joined almost 2 years ago from Trapeze, part of the Constellation Software Inc. Constellation are interesting as they have a similar buy-and-build strategy to Marlowe. So I am well versed on the challenges of manning product strategies in highly acquisitive companies. As Alex mentioned, we have successfully grown our software business from nothing to close to 100 developers today. These are deployed across a wide variety of different product areas. As is to be expected from a company that has grown in part by acquisitions, we have a variety of different technology stacks. This means we need to take a pragmatic approach to consolidating platforms. Rather than wasting time on replatforming for the sake of replatforming, we encourage our teams to push product innovation with new products and modules and with new APIs. One of the items I have introduced is a standardized innovation process. The aim is to ensure we spend our R&D pounds wisely. This is a gated process with clear criteria for transitioning from one phase to the next. Stage 1 is a simple one-page summary of the idea. What business problem is it solving and some high-level view of the value and therefore, the ROI for the project. This will be reviewed by me and other seniors within the company. Zooming across the Stage 1, we then developed a more detailed business plan for the product. We are very keen on identifying early adopters, our so-called special interest group. We also use a scenario-based modeling approach to ensure we are realistic about both the level of investment and the likely market traction. If the business case is accepted, then we move to development. Something I am very keen is that throughout the development, the team engages both with our SiC members to ensure that they remain focused on the business case, but also with our other internal stakeholders. So marketing, sales and customer care. Often, these teams are brought on board once the product is developed. That is too late. So we involve them throughout the process. And all teams must agree to the product launch. I'm also keen that once the product is launched, we keep a keen eye on whether the original financial goals are achieved or whether we need to pivot. So this slide just shows you how we've applied this successfully to date. We have quite a few examples. Over the last 2 years, we've launched 5 new products at MVP stage, so they've made their way through the whole pipeline. Probably, as importantly, we've got a number of products where we actually did the initial look at them and decided that there wasn't the business case, and we've actually -- and not moved forward with those. So it's definitely working as planned. This is a very real example of a product we developed and launched using this process. Our Prosure360 product is helping property owners ensure that the contractors they invite meet all the compliance requirements. Service providers upload relevant documentation that is checked by our assessors. Why did we do it? Well, again, when we looked at the business case, it fitted really nicely into what we're already doing in this space. So we already have our William Martin Compliance business, which is all about making sure that the properties are, from a health and safety perspective, compliant. That, in turn, is backed up by Meridian, which is the platform that both our customers and our own consultants use. Our Elogbooks is a computer-aided facilities management tool that once we've identified our shortcomings or needs for repair actually manages that repair process. So Prosure360 is really the -- another bit of that picture that augments those other 3 product areas and therefore, gives a natural expansion into a market we already understand well. And it's delivering on its original promises. Moving on. I'd like to now talk a little bit more about how we're building software excellence and a software culture in the company. And this takes a number of forms, but I'm bringing too out here specifically. On the left, I'll talk a bit about our software days. This is something where we bring senior people from our software business together, very much with the aim of sharing best practice across the business. And so this will be a 1-day event often typically where we've got both real experts, but also people who are still learning. 3 examples of this are Software Products Day we did where we really brought people together to understand our different software products. In the software space, Digital Marketing is one of the key routes to market. Again, we have some teams who are real experts at it. We have others who know they need to learn about it. And so we brought them together. We also brought in a number of external speakers. Software Pricing is a thorny issue, a difficult one. Again, we brought people together to explore the topic about how do you actually price software, particularly in a SaaS business in a way that is sensible and shows the value both to our customers and internally. The other half of this is really about helping cost of technical excellence in the business. And in order to do that, we bring our best engineering brands together from across the business for engaging in hackathons. We've got a few examples of this. One example was where we brought teams together to look at how we can do multi-platform mobile app development. Another one was where we really got the teams together to look at machine learning. So that was a multi-day event. We brought an external speaker from a leading U.K. university to talk about machine learning, where it was both academically, but also in the real world. And then we got each of the teams, using the tools that we've taught them, to actually tackle some real business problems in their part of the business and show how machine learning could help them. And more recently, we did a cybersecurity hacking competition where we've got different teams to try and hack each other's products, again, using external speakers to guide the teams in how to approach that. One of the areas I'm now focusing on is how to allow our products to work more closely together, providing value to our customers and upsell opportunities to our sales teams. There are many examples of such virtual circles. Here is just one such example. So in this example, we might have a change in regulations happening, say, fire regulations. Our Barbour team will identify this, will flag this through our regulatory intelligence business. A compliance director will therefore become aware of the fact that there is a change in the regulations coming that they need to be prepared for. This will, in turn, trigger a number of internal projects to understand how they achieve that compliance. And this is where our Corestream platform will help manage that process of putting into place those actions that will deliver that compliance in the new -- against the new regulations. Now part of -- one of the things that we might identify or our customer might identify is that in order to achieve this, we might need to do eLearning for relevant staff. And so from Corestream, that might trigger a process whereby eLearning is rolled out through our VinciWorks platform to relevant staff so they are updated on these new regulations. With the staff having understood what is required of them, they may, in turn, leading now contractors to come in and make changes, say, to fire doors or whatever it is. And again, that's where our Elogbooks business can then pick up that, push those changes through. And then finally, we will then -- our William Martin business through Meridian will ensure that, that compliance has been achieved. And it's really, therefore, all about making sure that, that information flows naturally through that virtual cycle. And from that, I'd like to hand you over to the virtual demonstrations.

Good afternoon. Welcome back, and we very much hope that you found the demonstrations helpful and insightful. My name is Gavin Snell, CEO of WorkNest. I was previously CEO of Ellis Whittam until it was acquired by Marlowe a little over 2 years ago. Since then, we've taken a business generating GBP 14 million turnover to a business now generating close to GBP 40 million. We've achieved that by continuing underlying revenue and margin growth, whilst acquiring 12 other businesses. Our strategy has been to develop complementary consultancy and software capabilities to help U.K. employers address some of the most sensitive risk and compliance imperatives, their employees and the workplace. Beyond that, software platforms have played a vital role in building operational efficiencies and a platform for further growth. Today, I'd like to share more about the environment that U.K. employees are operating in. Our software platforms interplay with our consultancy capabilities to help address those challenges and how we develop and grow long-term client relationships. It's tough out there. We support 42,000 U.K. employers in 54 private and public sectors, from the smallest owner-managed business to a 40,000 employee hospitality group. The challenges we hear our clients and partners talk about are broadly consistent. Economic, political and regulatory environment is creating great uncertainty with restructuring and redundancy programs appearing frequently in conversations. To compel that uncertainty, the nature of the relationship between employers and employees is changing, not least because of the lasting effects of COVID-19, mental health challenges are significant and growing. The resulting absenteeism level is challenging clients in many, many sectors. Our society is becoming more litigious. A U.K. employee today is more than twice as likely to make the claim against their employer than 3 years ago. This has been fueled by the abolition of tribunal fees and a growing breed of ambulance chase-style insurers. These cases are often highly sensitive and threaten the very existence of small, medium-sized businesses. In the last 10 years, we've seen over 30 changes to regulations that govern employees in the workplace. Employers are just not equipped to understand and ensure compliance with these regulations. Another factor is insurance. Insurance are creating more challenges. Employers who are not able to demonstrate strong safety practices are likely to be paying far higher, for example, employers' liability premiums. It is in these 2 markets that WorkNest is engaged. The SME segment, typically employing less than 150 people, where owner managers have no or little HR and health and safety expertise. There are over 1 million U.K. employers in this category. Separately, in the mid-market, where there are 50,000 U.K. employers employing up to 5,000 employees, where you see professional decision makers, HR, Health and Safety, General Counsel, operations, typically informed by traditional law firms. We find that our clients say 3 things: If I'm dealing with a sensitive employee relations issue or 1 guidance about health and safety risks, then I do not want to speak to a chatbot or go to a website. I want to speak to an expert who understands my business and gives me pragmatic and commercial advice. However, when you provide that advice, give me a software platform, which allows me to act out on that advice and provide the management information necessary to ensure that, that is done. Secondly, employers, and this was commented on earlier, recognize that their most valuable asset is their employees and colleague engagement. So help me protect them and build a great work. I know that my employees expect that of me. Most employers are aware and want to help to ensure safe workplaces. That expectation is even higher now that we've endured a major pandemic, even if those workplaces are the home. Help me understand the nature of those risks and provide me with a software platform that enables me to ensure that policies and procedures are followed. All the businesses that have been acquired and consolidated to form WorkNest address these challenges to bring 4 core competencies, employment law and HR advice. This is legal and HR named advice in both regulated and nonregulated form. Typically, insurance [ stacks ], we advise across the full range of employment relations issues from disciplinary to absenteeism to litigation defense. We provide a case management platform providing MI to enable efficiencies and targeted management training. We go further than that, and we have a cadre of hugely capable HR consultants and training experts who were able to act out of the advice and provide support to clients across the whole employee life cycle, from recruitment to mediation to disciplinary and much more. We provide interim leadership, project support, leadership development and training and recruitment services. In the world of health and safety and the Care Quality Commission, all employers employ more than 5 people, have obligations. We provide technology-enabled health and safety and CQC advice, required to ensure compliance and safe workplaces. We provide competent person advice on general and fire risks and CQC compliance, and we provide a safety management platform in order to be able to supplement that advice. We provide HR and eLearning software to our clients. These are single sign-on SaaS platforms, providing essential HR software, managing employee records, time and absence, management and much more. And eLearning, 330 digital courses, some of which you've seen in the demonstration. And we deliver those services to 42,000 U.K. employers, 7,500 retained and 34,500 association members. Our insights to U.K. business life is extensive with 500 colleagues advising on some 80,000 employee relations matters and undertaking health and safety audits and inspections on some 6,500 site visits per annum. Approximately 650,000 employees of our clients access our various software platforms, including HR software; the holiday and absence reporting; and digital e-learning, amongst other things. So I'd like to talk in the main around the interplay between our consultancy operations and software. And I'd like to do that by bringing alive 3 key case studies, the first of which talks about how our software platforms enable us to deliver real operational efficiency gains in our consultancy operations. Our software-enabled management information allows us to position consultancy and software competencies to help our clients address real operational issues. And thirdly, our day-to-day consultancy engagements provide rich actionable insight about risks and practices and issues, all of which enabled by our software platforms. We believe that we are unique in the GRC marketplace, providing organizations with consultancy and software and a combination which allows us to differentiate ourselves. Firstly, I'd like to talk about software enabling our efficiency gains. Software and the management information that software creates is playing a vital role in the delivery of our buy-and-build strategy. To demonstrate our success, I'd like to reference what we've achieved so far within what we refer to as our legal and HR advisory businesses. In a little over 2 years, we've made 12 acquisitions, 7 of which are what we would describe as legal and HR advisory. Informed by evidence that output and utilization was dramatically different across these businesses, we elected to adopt a simple policy. All look-alike businesses will work on the common core systems, CRM, practice management, HR software and finance. Much of this is through our own proprietary applications, but some of which, for example, through Salesforce. In the last 6 months, whilst our book value or the workload that we meet across these teams, have increased significantly, we've been able to reduce headcount by some 10%, and that's not because we've reduced our service or renewal levels. It's because we've been able to deploy a single platform, CaseNest, we've been able to deliver much more consistent working practices and target the use of training and development with -- informed by management information. Importantly, this also provides a platform for future acquisitions. I'd like to talk a little bit about how our digital insights creates consulting upsells for our clients. Imagine that you are an HR Director of the business employing people across 30 different locations. Difficult to note, as you can imagine, what's going on with day-to-day employee relations, largely because of the dispersed network of stores and locations and the inadequate adherence to policies and procedures. Well, a CaseNest dashboard, like the one I'm showing you, shows you exactly what you need if you're that HR Director. It gives you a complete view of all issues that local management in your HR teams are working on by type, by region and by status. Whilst I don't intend to familiarize you entirely with our CaseNest platform, what I do intend to do is show you how we're able to build value of the management information and target interventions. The data you're looking at is actually a year old. It highlights a dramatic increase in the volume of sickness-related absence, discipline and medical capability cases. It also shows that working with the HR director, we were able to pinpoint the problem and form a plan. In this case, we positioned and converted a management development program that we delivered and 2 different eLearning courses that were positioned to help address the challenge. The result was that over a 6-month period, we delivered dramatic results, reduction in sickness-related absence, particularly. And as a consequence, the client has remarked on the fact that they saved over GBP 0.5 million directly because they were no longer employing a temporary staff cover. Our final case study relates to how we were able to build a client relationship. This client particularly is in the hospitality sector. In this case, we will retain for GBP 5,000 legal advisory support to defend what has been deemed as a particularly challenging claim through the employment tribunal. Because of the results that we managed to secure for the client, we were able to convert that client to become a retained client directly because of the quality of that defense. In the course of providing advice, our employment lawyer was engaged to advise and recommend an investigation into management practices. It was deemed that the internal HR team had insufficient capacity and, in fact, capability. And as a direct result, our HR consultancy team will retain to complete an investigation. Time moves on, and the employment lawyer advise us on a separate issue, in this case, a sensitive safety at work. It involves a slip, and it involves inadequate safety practices. Our health and safety teams and software platform were engaged through a retainer to help this organization be able to much more adequately manage safety in the workplace. In the course of that retainer, a health and safety consultant completes a fire risk assessment at 10 initial sites. It's very clear that there is very inadequate fire safety training provided to staff. And as a result, we are attained through our digital learning platform to provide fire safety digital learning courses for some 4,500 employees. A simple story that shows how over an 18-month period, because of our consultancy engagements, we were able to secure both further consulting expertise as well as digital learning retained services. And as a result, grew our revenues from some GBP 5,000 to GBP 330,000. But perhaps more importantly, there is a huge amount of additional opportunity that we are able to extend beyond this relationship already. And finally, we're confident this approach works. There are many benefits that our clients enjoy, including the lower absenteeism, stronger colleague engagement, insurancing and, of course, compliance. Our recent research shows that, first of all, our clients are far less likely to experience an employment tribunal claim from their employees, some 77% compared to the average U.K. employer. In the rare event that they do experience that claim, then they're in good hands. Over the last year, we successfully defended 88% of claims made against our clients, at a time when U.K. employers and their advisers successfully defended only 9% of claims. We achieved that by extending more informed pragmatic upstream advice enabled by software and with an enormously capable litigation team who acts on behalf of our clients. Traditional law firms continue to run at very high charging rates. And whilst we employ similarly qualified lawyers, we've run a very efficient operation, again, enabled by software. As a result, our clients typically enjoy a 45% lower charge rate. Well-informed health and safety advice ensures that risks are identified and mitigated and a strong safety culture embedded. We could prove that our clients are 85% less likely to endure a health and safety prosecution, and that there is an 80% reduced risk of accidents in the workplace. Our clients typically enjoy a 30% reduced insurance premium as a result. Thank you for your time. Happy to take any questions, as I'm sure my fellow colleagues are. Otherwise, be free to do exactly that in the bar.