Antony Bellingall had worked in compliance and anti-money laundering for a number of years, in a career that took him from London to Tokyo to Singapore and back again. Although he had a career within major software and financial institutions, he longed for his own team that would share his ideals.

“I was in a very comfortable job with Standard Chartered Bank and I was living in Singapore. I could see businesses' pain points in maintaining compliance, and looking around at the offerings available to businesses, I thought, ‘I can do better than this’.”

He eventually co-founded Idenfo with Chief Business Development Officer Raza Abidi and CEO Naseer Hasan. The company is an anti-money laundering software solution provider and boutique consultancy that works with over 850 businesses across the world.

Despite the business’ current global reach, this wasn’t always the case. Antony used the Help to Grow: Management Course to see how his business could develop.

Antony joined the course at Norwich Business School. “I've not had any formal management training. I’m not the obvious person to start a business. But it's something that through circumstance and desire I got myself into.

“The course seemed like a sensible decision because it was an opportunity to try and build up my knowledge in areas of management that I hadn’t previously been exposed to as a project manager.

“To me, marketing was a dark art and salesmen generally annoyed me! The course allowed me to broaden my horizons and change my mindset.”

Learnings from the course

Through the Help to Grow: Management Course, Antony learned how his work on compliance tools could interact with other teams to achieve a common goal.

Marketing

“Marketing was the most useful module for me because you can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, it’s a waste of time. We realised that word of mouth was not enough to scale up our business. We had to market properly.”

“The outlined approaches to targeting and audience segmentation were really useful. Our product covers all aspects of KYC (Know Your Customer) guidelines, but we realised we can’t try to sell to everyone.

“When we decided for example that our mass retail product is going to target accountants, law firms, estate agents and jewellery shops; the scale of the business took off massively.”

Digital modules

Despite being a digital company and Antony’s appreciation of technology, the course emphasised that products had to be built in a way that made them easily accessible.

“Businesses who buy our product will have to integrate it into their platforms. The idea of having a Software Development Kit which allows us to integrate our product into other businesses’ apps was spurred on by the learnings from Help to Grow: Management.”

Business Mentoring

While making changes to the digital components of the business and its marketing strategy, Antony was also able to benefit from a mentor, as part of the Help to Grow: Management Course.

“I chose my mentor because he also ran a software company. He had experience of finding an audience for his product, which helped when I came in with a hundred different ideas; he could share the value of being focused on specific areas.

“That was the best advice because, as a business, we were almost chasing everything. When you stop doing that, you find out what you're actually good at and what people want to buy.”

Antony also found the peer network he gained from the course useful: “It was a room full of managers and leaders from a wide spread of industries, but we all had problems that individuals in the group could help with. I enjoyed having that forum to discuss my business.”

Doubled the headcount of the company.

Found the business' audience

Increased customer count by ten times

Results

On the back of his learnings, and the hard work of the team at Idenfo, the company has grown from 80 customers to 850 in just two years. To meet demand, the company has doubled its headcount from 80 employees to 160.

With more business growth on the horizon, Antony says: “The Help to Grow: Management Course has been really good. For most business leaders, education was a long time ago and you will have picked up positive and negative habits. It’s rewarding to go on the course and understand the latest thinking and tools.”

It’s clear that Antony has not only taken on board the learnings from the course but applied them very effectively in Idenfo.

You can find out more about the Help to Grow: Management Course here.

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