Dublin, Ireland Thursday 20th, October, 2005

Phorest win Dublin City Enterprise Award 2005

The winner of the Dublin City Enterprise Award 2005 is Phorest. The company supplies management and point of sale software systems for hair and beauty salons. Since its foundation in 2003, Phorest has sold its systems to 300 salons north and south and now commands 60% of the all-island market.

Announcing the 2005 Award winners, Greg Swift (CEO, Dublin City Enterprise Board, who sponsor the award), said that the company had achieved great things in a very short period. ''From a standing start, just two years ago, Phorest now dominates its market, employs 17 people and has achieved a turnover in excess of €1 million,'' said Mr. Swift. '' Phorest will represent Dublin City in the National Enterprise Awards finals, sponsored by the County & City Enterprise Boards, due to be held in Dublin in November. It is particularly gratifying that a company we have grant aided and invested in by way of Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares are making such good headway,'' he added.

Phorest was founded in 2003 by James Myerscough and Ronan Perceval after the success of their first project, namely sending text message promotions for a beauty salon located in the International Financial Services Centre, Dublin. ''From this experience we realised that there an opportunity in the market which was previouly untapped. We designed and developed a simple and easy to use computer system to runs a salon's managerial and administrative tasks, freeing up the salon owner's time, thereby allowing them to concentrate on the areas of their business where they could create most added value,'' explains Ronan.

In November 2003 Phorest released Memento, the first version of their software and signed their first client. By May 2005 the company was the fastest growing software developer within it's market with 100 salon client. In June 2005 Phorest completed the acquisition of the largest salon sotware company in Ireland, Stylebase, who had 170 salon clients.

Software benefits
Phorest software has replaced the manual way of doing business that has been the norm in salons for decades. ''By replacing the appointment book, voucher book, stock book, cash register, client record cards and accounts with one integrated system, the salon becomes much and more efficient and frees owners and managers from a great amount of administrative tasks,'' comments Ronan.

The system can be arranged in a network so that salon owners can run their business from home. Salon customers can book also book treatment appointments via the Internet.

''We pioneered the use of text message appointments for salons. They lose a substantial amount of money every week through customers failing to keep appointments. Our system enables a salon to send an automatic text appointment reminder that cuts no-shows by up to 80%'', Perceval adds.

With its dominant position in the irish market secure, Phorest now intends to commence exporting, first to the UK next year and then into mainland Europe.