You are here

Home » About us » History

History

Data is at the very root of Entity’s heritage, as the name implies. Follow Entity’s journey from the days of large scale transactional systems on IBM Mainframes through to the complex data management solutions of today. 

1980's

Entity originates from the founding directors’ success at harnessing data and designing, building and delivering large scale, complex, and widely dispersed business solutions [IBM mainframes, CICS OLTP, Cobol/PL1 and DB2]. Entity’s focus has always been to extract information from data and business value from Information. 


It was in 1987 that Entity’s name first appeared in the heart of London’s financial district, with two ‘extracting value from information’ assignments. Merrill Lynch commissioned Entity to tackle FSA regulation reporting and Morgan Grenfell required Entity to design and implement a mergers and acquisitions ‘dating’ solution - matching potential buyers with prospective sellers.  Both projects set Entity on the road of making data, or more correctly information, work for an organisation. 


Concurrently, Entity was also continuing its love affair with the automotive sector, with projects at Daihatsu and Renault.  Both companies required solutions that solved some of the complexity of business trading activities between the importer and their widely dispersed dealer outlets.  Each solution involved the intricacies of the emergent electronic data interchange (EDI) standards, delivered as structured data messages. These communication solutions allowed information to flow quickly between trading partners. 


These early EDI/WAN based innovative information flow solutions brought Entity to the attention of IBM.  In 1989 Entity was appointed an IBM Business Partner, for both solution provision, and as a reseller of IBM connectivity and value added network services.  The strong working relationship that developed between IBM and Entity led to many large scale EDI based implementation programmes, mainly focused within the retail sector, with such household names as Unilever, Safeway [now Morrisons], Texas Homecare [now Homebase], Samsung, and many others.

 

1990's

Early 90’s

This joint business activity prompted IBM to commission Entity to build an industry wide generic EDI solution initially for the retail sector, and latterly for the healthcare sector.   Entity’s own investment in EDI also continued, and Entity built its own EDI product, EDItion, which it successfully launched and marketed from 1990 up to 1992 when, for strategic reasons, Entity sold it to Sterling Commerce [and the product was re-branded as part of Sterling Commerce’s Gentran product range].


In 1992, Entity re-focused its business on large scale, information and process management solutions. Concurrent with Entity’s EDI developments above, Entity was also delivering a process management solution at Quest International, a flavours and fragrances manufacturing company within the Unilever Group.  Entity, selected for its mainframe skills and communications knowledge, introduced process automation and control within the manufacturing process, in real time – driving orders directly from the IBM systems, via DEC process control systems, to locate and move stock from the fully automated, robotic warehouse into the manufacturing plant, to coincide with the arrival of the order. This was a solution that really did sharpen the focus on delivery of information in a timely way.  


Late 90’s

 

During the remaining 1990s Entity continued to flourish, delivering similar information management solutions to its automotive, finance, insurance and manufacturing customers.  In addition, Entity also made its entrance into the government and education sectors, working with one of the large awarding bodies, and the regulator, to introduce information management systems for student examinations and assessments. This was the start of Entity’s contribution to education that continues to this day [Entity has recently completed an assignment for the Qualification and Curriculum Development Agency, and is in the process of delivering course information management solutions to UCAS, the University and Colleges Admissions Service].


As the millennium approached, the focus moved to the mysterious millennium bug.  This frenzy of millennium related activity distracted Entity from its core Information Management mission, but not quite as much as the subsequent dotcom boom.  Wow, did that distract.   Entity was closely involved with IBM and, via IBM, Entity took its share of fledgling dotcom companies with their ‘get rich quick’ ideas [a family focused web services, but unfortunately not Facebook, a financial instrument information site but not Reuters, an alumni web site but not Friends Re-united, and so the list goes on].   

 

 

 

2000's

Early 00’s

 

In the post millennium period, new buzz words appeared to label the type of solutions that Entity had been delivering for years.  Data governance solutions, customer data integration solutions, customer relationship management solutions, master data management solutions, reference data management solutions, and now information management.    Entity has been delivering such systems throughout its history.


Late 00’s


In 2006, Entity was invited by Initiate Systems, the largest global pure-play Master Data Management software vendor, to provide implementation and support services to their fledgling EMEA operations. Initiate Systems had established a dominant position in the Master Data Management sector [Gartner: ‘visionary’], particularly in healthcare where over 60% of the healthcare industry relied on Initiate to correctly identify and match individuals’ healthcare records.  In the UK, Initiate soon established their presence, and, as in the US, took a dominant position in many market sectors, including government, insurance, finance, and healthcare.  Entity’s role as Initiate’s UK technology partner prompted our involvement with many implementation and integration projects for BMI (General Healthcare), Nuffield, esure insurance, Zurich insurance, HMRC, and Rabobank.

 

 

 

Finance and Insurance

Entity and its staff have considerable expertise across the finance and insurance sectors. Find out more.

Automotive Pedigree

Entity has worked with half of the Top 10 global automotive manufacturers. Find out more about Entity's automotive capabilities.