We'll try not to be offended that you've asked that question! But it's right that you do as your council needs to know that the suppliers you use are resilient and have plans should the worst happen.
Short Answer
The short answer is:
- You'll be given notice that the company is winding up. The exact amount of notice will be in our latest Terms and Conditions. It's currently 12 month.
- During that period you'll be informed if any of our services are being migrated to another company or if they'll be closed down at the same time as the company.
- Services will remain active until the end of your contract period or on the closing down date, whatever comes first. This gives you an opportunity to export any information you need from our services.
Resilience
The way we operate our company means that the likelihood of us having to close down the company are very slim (famous last words, I know). Here are some points to show how we operate:
- We take up-front annual subscriptions for our services, which means we typically have a large cash reserve that covers operations for the duration of your contract. In reality, our reserves cover 150% of your subscription term.
- We are a Community Interest Company (Local Authority Technology CIC) which limits the profits we can make. This ensures Directors cannot extract disproportionate amounts of money from the company and compromise its stability.
- Community Interest Companies typically have no shareholders or shares, making it near impossible to sell on (just in case the Directors get tempted by an offer).
- We have a sister company, Geoxphere Ltd, where we sell our services commercially. Having the two companies operate side-by-side gives extra resilience as they have shared Directors and therefore a strong intent to keep both solvent.