Vertical Systems modernises to brush off loss of biggest client

Travel technology specialist Vertical Systems says it has maintained its turnover and increased profits since it lost its largest client The Co-operative Travel following the merger with Thomas Cook.

Travel technology specialist Vertical Systems says it has maintained its turnover and increased profits since it lost its largest client The Co-operative Travel following the merger with Thomas Cook.

Mike Russell was brought in from Holiday Experts, the homeworking firm owned by Vertical, in 2011 to run the technology arm that operates the TARSC travel agent software.

Vertical Group chief executive Peter Healey said: “It has been an interesting challenge, but we have maintained our £5 million turnover and increased our profit – and no-one is more surprised than me.

“Mike has been tremendously creative and we have gone into new strategic markets. We have refocused on our strengths and now have scalable products – we can deal with two desks or 10,000 desks.

“We’ve moved our product stream in to a much more up-to-date environment.

“At the same time we are one of the key providers of Viewdata – people have long predicted the death of it but it’s still a cost effective mechanism.”

Healey said the firm was attracting a number of new clients, with five coming on board in coming weeks.

A new release of Vertical’s Intuiti product is about to be launched. It integrates Vertical’s Magic Desktop product, which provides package holidays, with advanced dynamic packaging technology.

Healey said the updated version can be installed anywhere in Europe, allowing clients to internationalise their business.

“The barriers (to targeting European markets) are tumbling very quickly,” he said.