Objective’s statement of financial position remains strong. At 30 June 2011, the company had $10.7 million in cash and cash equivalents and no external borrowings. The Directors have declared a final unfranked dividend of 1.5 cents per share.

Financial Summary

 

Results Summary Year Ended 30 June	FY2011 $m	FY2010 $m	Change (%)
Revenue	40.0	41.5	-4%
Profit before amortisation and tax	3.7	2.7	37%
Net profit after tax	3.1	2.1	46%
Asia Pacific revenue	31.7	28.6	11%
European revenue	7.4	11.9	-37%
R&D (fully expensed)	9.3	9.4	-1%
Earnings per share	2.6 cps	1.7cps	53%
Final dividend (unfranked)	1.5 cents	1.3 cents	15%

Mr Tony Walls, CEO, Objective Corporation said: “We are pleased to report that our strategy of commitment to the public sector has led to an increase in revenue in the Asia Pacific region and that despite austerity programs across the United Kingdom public sector we continued to acquire new customers in the region. 

During the year we delivered our next generation enterprise content management platform Objective 8 ECM, a new version of our cloud based solution Objective Online 4 and launched Objective Enterprise Search all of which will deliver new revenue opportunities for the Company”. 

Operations

Asia Pacific

The Asia Pacific region once again experienced growth in revenue.

The year’s highlights include being awarded a strategic long-term contract with the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority to rollout an enterprise-wide solution for 6,500 users. We also achieved success with the signing of Victorian State Trustees which was our first new Victorian State Government customer in some years.

Other new customers in the Asia Pacific region include: MidCoast Water, Growth Management Queensland, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, Department of Trade and Economic Development, South Australia, Department of Planning and Local Government, South Australia, Department of State Development, Western Australia and Logan City Council.

Our penetration of the New Zealand Local Government sector continues to deepen, with further sales of both our online and ECM offerings. New customers in this market included Christchurch City Council, Clutha District Council, Queenstown Lake District Council and Environment Southland.

Our ongoing commitment to service excellence meant that we were able to deliver a high number of successful project outcomes for our customers. This was evidenced by the decision of the Australian Department of Defence, to extend their contract and implement a large scale upgrade of Objective ECM.

Following on from the success of our Value Insight Program in the United Kingdom, FY11 saw the launch of the program in the Asia Pacific region, enabling us to bring our deep public sector industry experience, technical skills, and extensive knowledge of information and content management to identify financial, social and political returns within customers’ key business processes.

The Value Insight Program further strengthens our customer engagement and identifies our value as a core business solution.

Europe and United States

The prevailing weak economic conditions across the United Kingdom and the United States created a challenging environment in which to acquire new customers.

However despite these circumstances, we were pleased to welcome Bedford Borough Council, University of Portsmouth in the UK and Allegheny County in the US to our customer community.

The continued investment in our Value Insight Program further strengthened Objective’s long held domain expertise in the public sector and enabled us to demonstrate the return on investment for our existing customers.

Market confidence in our innovation strategy was evidenced by one of Objective’s largest European customers, Welsh Government’s, early upgrade plan to Objective ECM 8.

Research and Development

Objective has continued to make a significant investment in research and development. This year’s investment was $9.3 million, approximately 23 per cent of revenue (FY10: $9.4 million) and concentrated on strengthening our core technologies, developing new capabilities and creating a series of new web based applications that benefit the public sector.

The release of Objective ECM 8 marks the next generation in Objective’s world class enterprise content, collaboration and process management solution.

Objective entered into a strategic partnership with Exalead enabling the provision of superior Enterprise Search. This is a significant long-term investment for Objective and one that we expect will deliver benefits for our stakeholders into the future.

Outlook

Mr Walls said: “The outlook for FY2012 is encouraging. Our business strategy of focusing on the needs of the public sector and our expertise in this target market well position us to deliver improved results in the coming financial year.

The Board and management of Objective Corporation would like to thank our customers, staff and shareholders, for their commitment and valuable contribution to the ongoing success of the company.