Paradise Computing: Scaling Under an Actual Business Berg

When it comes to providing IT solutions and services, there is a need for working with an approach to resolve issues faced by the customers with precise expertise and prompt decision making. This experience comes with years of hard work and honing one’s technical skills. One such company dedicatedly operating with a similar approach is Paradise Computing Ltd.

Paradise Computing was established in 1987 following redundancy around the time when several London businesses collapsed, marking the end of the original .com bubble.  For its first 20 years, Paradise was an IT lifestyle business shaped around Jonathon Berg, Managing Director of the company and his skillsets in software development, databases, and networking. This enabled him to build experience as well as raise three children while maintaining a good standard of living. “Life was fine, but it wasn’t particularly exciting,” says Jonathon.

However, a lucky (or insightful) decision in the late nineties to go ‘all in’ with cloud technology changed the direction of the business and Paradise became the first UK business to specialise in cloud delivery of the Sage 200 ERP software to mid-sized businesses. This decision led Paradise to build and operate a small but successful ISO27001-certified data centre at Althorp. 

“The business is still based here, the ancestral home of Princess Diana, because of the excellent road and rail links as well as being geographically close to the centre of the UK, making the company a viable supplier to the whole country,” shares Jonathon.

It is also a tranquil and picturesque place to work.  Once the company moved to the site in 2005 there followed a period of heavy investment in Microsoft technologies, becoming a Gold Partner whilst developing specialised skills around Azure and 365. This meant Paradise was already well established in the emerging market of subscription-based provision of software and services and so the company found the recent changes to subscription imposed by Microsoft, Sage and other leading vendors a relatively easy change, particularly in the key areas of cashflow management and billing systems.

As the company grew from a handful of professionals to the current staff of 18, further revenue streams have been added, including leveraging the company’s extensive experience with software development (customising Sage 200 ERP), Paradise developed high-quality web-based software, some of which are white labelled. These are sold today by major vendors in the marketplace as their own products.

Underlying this was Jonathon’s wish to maintain the highest standards in everything the company provides, reflected in a well-trained and fiercely loyal professional workforce, engendering something more akin to an extended family than simply colleagues working together.  “An office where there is laughter and a buzz of conversation is good, especially when it is accompanied by high morale and a dedication to making sure customers are dealt with promptly and proficiently,” conveys Jonathon.

This business ethic has seen their loyal customer base grow steadily with very little attrition – a great metric to judge company quality by. The 2020 pandemic has shown how resilient a small business can be if it is based on a recurring subscription income model, which has enabled Paradise to maintain full salaries to all staff and even recruit and train new staff during a difficult period for the economy.

Jonathon describes “All of this basically dates back to the decision to go cloud and go with a subscription model.  That has been the powerhouse that has built this business into the successful and growing commercial enterprise it is today.”  He is very proud of the excellent team here, and it is their skills that make the whole thing work, but it was the subscription model that allowed Paradise the security to do things properly – to recruit, to train and to take time to build skills and systems appropriately.

Most recently a decision was made to develop a software product under Paradise’s own brand name, and this led to the creation of CL200, a cutting-edge data-viewer, task-manager and CRM designed specifically for Sage 200.  Using over 20 years of experience working with Sage 200 users has enabled the Paradise team to develop software that provides information in clear and concise screens while the deep understanding of the underlying data structures makes the software fast and reliable.

Developed using the most up-to-date Microsoft tools and based in Azure, after more than two years of extensive beta-testing, this exciting product is ready to launch and will go on sale in February 2021. CL200 is a game-changer.

“The market has been crying out for a good, easy to use, low-cost light CRM product for Sage 200 for many years, and since there didn’t seem to be one in the works, I thought we would take the opportunity to build one ourselves,” Jonathon states.

Paradise Computing Ltd.: Scaling Under an Actual Business Berg - The Business Berg