ACL Announces Worldwide Revenue Growth, Strategic Progress in FY13

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- ACL, the company that is transforming audit and risk management, today announced highlights from its fiscal year ending July 31, 2013. During the year, ACL made strategic progress across the business including: driving high growth in cloud product subscription contracts, the unveiling of a new cloud-based GRC software offering and launching major version releases of ACL's core risk and control data analysis and continuous monitoring solutions.

"We have the fastest-growing GRC cloud business on the planet," said Laurie Schultz, President and CEO of ACL. "Building on the large customer base who have successfully applied our core risk and controls analysis and monitoring products, we are focused on expanding our product portfolio and go-to-market activities across large adjacent GRC market opportunities, which we believe will deliver the next phase of revenue growth and success for ACL. Today, we're adding approximately 50 new ACL GRC customers on a quarterly basis."

 Business Highlights:

• Grew cloud subscription sales contracts, signing agreements with new ACL™ GRC customers in North America, EMEA, Central and Latin America and Asia Pacific including: Aurora Health Care, Conair Corporation, Connecticut State Colleges & Universities, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Logitech, Promens (Iceland), Riverside Health System, Solaire Resort & Casino (Philippines), The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and 99 Cents Only Stores.
• Reached a deal for the asset acquisition of Singapore-based The Prodigy Group, providing ACL with a strategic foothold from which to target the growing South East Asian market.
• Capitalized on an emerging recovery across Europe, with a return to double-digit revenue growth.
• At year end, more than 50% of ACL employees were new or promoted in the past 24 months. The company anticipates increasing its worldwide employee base by a further 35% in fiscal year 2014.
• More than doubled the number of channel partners across the developing markets of India and the Middle East, driving > 50% revenue growth in that region.
• Increased combined software maintenance and cloud subscription revenue renewal rates to 100+%.
• Closed the year with a customer Net Promoter Score of 44%, a 16 point improvement in customer satisfaction from the previous year.
• Expanded ACL's worldwide Research and Development team by more than 50%.

Product Portfolio Highlights:

• Launched ACL GRC, a cloud-based risk assessment, project management and results management solution replacing ACL Workpapers.
• Subsequent to year end, ACL announced that ACL GRC is available in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. Customers can choose to have the software hosted in any of four data centers across North America, the European Union, or Asia.
• Released ACL™ Analytics 10, a faster, more feature-rich version of ACL's core analytics product. Analytics 10 received immediate customer traction with 300% more customer downloads than the last major release.
• Unveiled Analytics Exchange 4, the fourth generation of ACL's server-based analytics engine previously branded AuditExchange.
• Released ACL GRC for iOS devices, the first native audit and compliance application for iPhone® and iPad® as a free download on the iTunes® App Store.

A key FY2013 milestone is the realization of ACL's vision for data-driven GRC; the integration of a broadly-attractive risk assessment, project management and results management solution with industry-standard risk and control data analytics. With the combined solution, customers are able to link transaction-level information such as corporate credit card spending with strategic corporate risks such as compliance with anti-bribery legislation.

Added Ross Paul, Vice President Go-to-Market, ACL, "More than two decades ago, ACL was formed on the principle that GRC professionals from a wide range of organizational departments were underserved by technology to help them do their jobs. As business software has advanced for other professions, it has lagged for people in these roles. In the last 12 months, we have made major strategic progress towards our vision for transforming audit, risk and compliance with a suite of solutions and services that combine elegant design with features that solve today's challenges." 

Supporting resources:

• To learn more about ACL GRC, visit: www.acl.com/solutions/products/acl-grc/
• For the latest news and views on compliance, risk, fraud and audit, visit: www.acl.com/blog
• Follow ACL on Twitter: @ACLServices
• Join ACL on LinkedIn: www.acl.com/LinkedIn
• Like ACL Services on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ACLServices

About ACL
ACL delivers technology solutions that are transforming audit and risk management. Through a combination of software and expert content, ACL enables powerful internal controls that identify and mitigate risk, protect profits, and accelerate performance.

Driven by a desire to expand the horizons of audit and risk management so they can deliver greater strategic business value, we develop and advocate technology that strengthens results, simplifies adoption, and improves usability. ACL's integrated family of products—including our cloud‐based governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solution and flagship risk and control data analytics products—combine all vital components of audit and risk, and are used seamlessly at all levels of the organization, from the C‐suite to front line audit and risk professionals and the business managers they interface with. Enhanced reporting and dashboards provide transparency and business context that allows organizations to focus on what matters.

And, thanks to 25 years of experience and our consultative approach, we ensure fast, effective implementation, so customers realize concrete business results fast at low risk. Our actively engaged community of more than 14,000 customers around the globe—including 89% of the Fortune 500—tells our story best. Here are just a few. Visit us online at www.acl.com.

© 2013 ACL Services Ltd. ACL and the ACL logo are registered trademarks of ACL Services Ltd. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE ACL