MAIS.L Regulatory News (MAIS)

9 April 2013

blur (Group) plc

("blur," the "Group" or the "Company")

Q1 Metrics Update

blur (Group) Plc (BLUR), the technology company that's reinventing commerce at blurgroup.com, is once again showing strong growth in its key metrics and driving businesses to use s-commerce. This latest quarter shows a 178% increase in briefs submitted to the Global Services Exchange in the first quarter and the largest sequential quarterly increase in briefs in the Exchange's history.

*Q1 2012 total brief values exclude the one-off brief of $5m received in the quarter.

Brief Metrics

● Acceleration in the number of briefs submitted, with the highest ever sequential quarterly increase (43% over Q4 2012) to 359, more than the total number of briefs submitted in the first half of last year

● Significant increase in percentage of briefs from the US, now accounting for 58% of all briefs submitted in the quarter

● 130 new customers in the quarter including Uberflip, Octopus Investments, the UK Bioindustry Association, Sporting Index, Premier Exhibition Management, Cloudbiz and Abicadem

● Repeat customers accounting for 20% of briefs this quarter (Q1 2012: 19%), including eBay, Momentive, Broadridge and Scott Safety and a new customer, a Spanish hospital group opening clinics in the UK

The first quarter of 2013 was the busiest to date for blur Group with the number of briefs submitted, which is the lead indicator of demand on the Exchange, increasing by 178% year on year to 359 - more than the total number of briefs submitted in the first half of 2012.

This is also a 43% increase on Q4 2012, which is the highest ever quarterly jump in the history of the Exchange, emphasizing the rate of growth in businesses adopting s-commerce, as well as demonstrating the success of recent digital marketing initiatives driving increasing numbers of briefs onto the Exchange.

The quarter also saw the increasing number of businesses submitting multiple briefs. For example, Momentive, a manufacturing company that was spun out of GE and holds exclusive licences for GE products, has now submitted 15 separate briefs across multiple exchanges, eBay has continued to brief the Exchange as anticipated in the final quarter of last year and more companies are extending from their initial projects including Broadridge. Scott Safety, who first briefed in Q4 2011 have started new projects this quarter.

In total, these repeat briefs accounted for 20% of all briefs submitted, with three businesses submitting over half of these repeat briefs, demonstrating the classic Exchange adopter who recognizes that s-commerce can deliver services on a regular and repeat basis to their business.

The total value of briefs submitted to the Exchange showed an increase of 180% from $1.39m to $3.89m when one exceptional brief of $5m from Q1 2012 is discounted. The average brief value for this quarter was $10,800 ($10,500 in Q1 2012). In total 36 briefs were between $25K and $200K in value this quarter.

Q1 2013 was the third quarter in succession where the majority of the briefs came from the US, at 58%, a significant increase on the prior quarter (Q4 FY2012: 49%). This growth tallies with the continued growth of the US sales office in Dallas. In total, 88% (Q4 FY2012: 84%) of briefs came from the US and the UK, with the next largest countries being India and Australia.

Continuing from its position as the sector submitting most briefs in 2012, 25% of briefs in the quarter came from technology companies. Services in general, including IT and professional services, made up two-fifths of all briefs submitted. The remaining briefs came from a broad range of sectors - including consumer products, healthcare, law and media.

Project Metrics

● Most projects (111) completed in quarter since Exchange launched

● 258% growth in completed projects compared with Q1 2012

The growth in projects kicked off on the Exchange continues, with the number of completed projects increasing to 110 from 89 in the previous quarter (a 24% increase) and 31 in Q1 2012 (a 254% increase).

Experts

● Over 25,000 expert service providers now on the eight Exchanges

● 141 countries now represented on Exchange

At the end of the quarter there were 25,310 experts on the eight exchanges compared with 23,275 at the end of 2012 and 14,318 at the end of Q1 2012. 

As with briefers, experts are now coming from larger service providers around the world. For example, the marketing Exchange now has PR Agencies from the global top 50 including Bite, Lewis PR and Hill & Knowlton.

Different areas of expertise are also coming to the fore: for service providers on the Marketing Exchange the main area of expertise is now social media, whereas for Designers and Design Agencies, it is branding.

Among the new exchanges, the most prevalent expertise for the technology experts is web development, but mirroring the current market trends over half have cloud computing skills. New experts to join blur Technology include multinational services and technology firms Concentrix and Eloqua.

Other blur Group Developments

● Launch of premium accounts for both customers and experts

● Accounting and Legal Exchanges taking briefs

● Increase of maximum budget ranges to $1m from $200k on brief app

● Growth in sales teams to develop larger accounts

One of the major platform releases for the quarter was Premium Account for both businesses briefing the Exchange and service providers on the Exchange. Premium Account, a paid-for subscription-based service, allows handling of multiple briefs and users from one dashboard. The service aims to make the whole delivery process faster regardless of location, price, service type and industry across businesses of all sizes.

With the Accounting and Legal Exchanges taking their first briefs after going live at the beginning of the quarter, the breadth of potential for businesses wanting to source all services through the Exchange increased. The newer exchanges are attracting larger expert service providers: international law firm Taylor Wessing was among those experts pitching for the first legal brief.

To address the increasing number of briefs and exchange adopters, the brief app was modified to allow for brief ranges of up to $1,000,000 to be briefed from the start of the project. This is particularly valuable to those customers who are putting larger services briefs on to the Exchange and typically will be Premium Account customers whose budget runs across multiple functions.

With accounts like Broadridge, eBay and Momentive running multiple projects this quarter the s-commerce model continues to gain adoption. As a result the sales teams in both Europe and the US have grown this quarter to enable more account development and scalability of these accounts.

Philip Letts, CEO blur Group described the continuing momentum: "We are delighted to have recorded the biggest sequential quarterly increase in briefs being submitted to the Exchange in blur Group's history, demonstrating our growing momentum. We've always maintained that the Exchange is only at the very beginning of its growth story. We've continued to develop the trading platform's scalability in terms of briefs handled and experts managed. Through additional products like Premium Account we are facilitating the uptake of s-commerce by larger organizations across multiple functions, bringing this scalability to the users of the Exchange. It's always good to kick off the first quarter of a year on a high, and this has been just that. It is encouraging to note that we've seen the number of briefs in one quarter exceed the totals in the first half of last year, and in the entire year for 2011; all helping towards our ambition of being the UK Tech titan."

For further information please contact:

About blur (Group) plc at blurgroup.com

blur Group is a technology company reinventing how businesses do commerce at blurgroup.com. Its Global Services Exchange delivers services differently: a new way to buy, manage and pay for core services. Over 25,000 businesses in 141 countries have adopted this s-commerce platform and changed the way they work.

blur Group (BLUR) is a public company headquartered in the UK with offices in the US and Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. blur was founded in January 2006 and launched in alpha in 2007 with the full, formal launch of the Global Services Exchange in January 2010.

At that time, just over three briefs per month were submitted. Now 100 briefs per month from companies like Broadridge, Coral, eBay, Exceed, HCA, Momentive, Red Commerce, the Financial Times, Berlitz, Butlins, GE Healthcare and Tyco are received. Over the same time, average brief value has grown from approximately $1,500 in 2010 to $10,800 in Q1 2013. Today, more than 1,700 briefs have been submitted with a combined brief value of over $24 million. These briefs have come from the US, UK, Europe, Africa and Asia with over 25,000 expert service providers on eight exchanges responding to them.