Paul North

Founder

Our Founder, Paul North, began his working life as an analytical chemist and was in at the beginning of the IT revolution in UK business. Still working in a lab, he taught himself to program in order to write a laboratory management system which then completely replaced the pen and ink records used in the business. Paul was hooked! In short order, he left chemistry behind to focus his career exclusively on IT system management.

The back story

Along the way he oversaw for clients the implementation of a number of the leading accounting systems and as a result developed a deep understanding of the data structures sitting behind the user screens as well as many of the accounting principles they depend on.

To help out a business owner who was struggling to cope with a growing business and too many spreadsheets, Paul wrote an early version of what is now Octelas business intelligence software. Within just a few weeks the software had transformed the way this client did business and had become completely indispensable to the whole management team.

Soon other clients wanted the same software and it quickly became indispensable for them too.

Paul knew that he had hit on something quite special.

Fast forward to today and, several iterations later, we have the sophisticated and unique combination of clever software and data analyst advice which makes up the all-in-one Illuminis business intelligence solution.

What makes Octelas business intelligence software special?

Octelas business intelligence software is designed to meet the very specific needs of SME business.

Crucially Paul understood that very few SMEs have data analysis skills “in house” and typically their IT team (in house or external) deals with the infrastructure and not the data.

The consequence is that few SMEs have any hands on experience with business intelligence tools and find it difficult to “specify” their exact reporting needs in advance. Equally they don’t have large budgets to spend on systems that they don’t understand.

For all these reasons, from the formation of the company in 2012, Paul laid down 4 key values which underpin the illuminis business intelligence solution:

– the system is tailored very precisely to the clients needs;
– it is extremely flexible in design and can be adapted to changing needs in (literally) minutes;
– no special IT skills are needed to use it; and
– every client has access to their own, named illuminis data analyst at no extra charge.