Mamut is the Norwegian word for that great prehistoric and wooly beast that became extinct 10,000 years ago. Mammoth or Mamut is also the name of a modern Norwegian company which hopes it has a great future ahead of it following its initial public offering, international expansion and entrance into the Irish market. With an annual turnover of €25,000,000 and a modest target of getting 2,500 to 3,000 customers within 3 years in Ireland, Mamut doesn’t seem to be a behemoth to strike fear into the hearts of its competitors.
Sage is strong
Certainly Sage through numerous acquisitions and through the quality and reliability of its software has managed to achieve an almost dominant position in the Irish small business accounts, financial management and payroll market. It is difficult to see how a new player such as Mamut can get a foothold in the market for itself.
CRM opportunity
If accounts and payrolls prove beyond it, there may other business niches where it may make some progress. Take customer relationship management software as an example. In Ireland, according to recent research conducted by TNS on behalf of Sage, less than 5% of small firms in Ireland with less than 50 employees are using bespoke CRM solutions. As part of its Enterprise package Mamut offers CRM capability as a module at a relatively low cost. Sage by the admission of its managing director Liam Mullaney sees the need to provide consultancy to smaller businesses if they are to adopt CRM as a technology. “Contact management such as ACT works out of the box. Bespoke CRM implementation requires that the service provider has clear understanding of how the small business client engages with their customers” Mullaney argues. Sage recently acquired CRM specialist Delphi Systems with a view to providing this expert, on-site assistance on top of the software. It remains to be seen as to whether Mamut can deliver a CRM application out of the box that can be configured to deliver effective CRM to the Irish small business.
Backup for business
Another niche service which Mamut could thrive in is online backup. It will offer its Irish customers 1 Gbyte of storage for each employee for free, with a charge of EUR*1 for every Gbyte afterwards. With continuous back-ups and a public-private key security arrangement so the customer’s company data is protected from second and third party intrusion, this could be an ideal service for information-intensive companies such as small solicitor and architectural firms who want to secure their data off-site on a daily and continuous basis.
Likewise, its web shop module should bring some innovative Scandinavian thinking about e-commerce to the Irish market.
Mamut has already created some strong alliances in the IT industry and was endorsed by no less a doyen than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who applauded the company for bringing business software to small companies at an affordable price. It will be interesting to see if its products can live up to the pre-launch hype and provide a viable alternative to the Sage stable.
Stephen Cawley – Editor
Ltd
