Our Founding

su53 Solutions was conceived in 2005 by two visionaries who had been working in aspects of SAP® Security for all of their working lives. For years they had seen how security pressures - whether from auditors or from customers, suppliers, the city or the community - were growing in major clients using more and more of SAP’s solutions, yet the availability of help and advice was very mixed. In many situations organisations using SAP had to react to incidents, with all the re-work, recovery and unplanned expense. However there were more and more examples of getting it right – organisations who built in security at implementation, who looked at optimising their SAP® operations, who would get it right from the start.

The two founders, Gary Carter and Gavin Campbell, both shared an overwhelming drive to get all organisations to work like that and developed a vision to set up a specialist consultancy that would bring focus, innovation, and investment in this area. Shortly afterwards they met with Martyn Proctor, an experienced SAP® Practice Director with a strong business management and marketing background, and through joining forces, su53 was launched into the market.

A geographic and economic analysis proved quickly that Northern Ireland was the best place to found the business: innovative, available and committed people, combined with support from the Northern Ireland Government provided the advantages needed, and so su53's HQ was set up in Newry. Revenues in its first year exceeded those planned, and su53’s launch success was confirmed.

Growth

In the first two years su53 grew quickly, finding new clients who needed security service, and soon the breadth of services expanded to strategic advisory work, helping organisations to plan better ways to manage their security operations. su53 was also recruiting experienced people who brought new ways of thinking and even more passion to the business.

The economic challenges that started in 2008 caused us to sharpen our focus and as a result, our growth accelerated! su53 was now winning larger contracts, and in larger, more demanding organisations. Working internationally, bringing a consistent approach to UK based businesses operating globally, became a regular part of the team’s life: by the end of 2009 su53 had already delivered services locally in twelve countries across the world.

The growing team included consultants from across the UK and as a result, su53 opened its Consulting Centre in the heart of England, situated next to Birmingham Airport in perhaps the best connected location in the UK.

su53 had recruited some of the world’s top GRC specialists, and the volume of GRC based project work grew rapidly, accounting for 50% of revenues in 2009.

2009 also saw a closer working relationship with SAP – both at a technical GRC and Security level with key people in Palo Alto and Walldorf, and with the client teams across EMEA. This culminated in su53’s appointment as SAP UK’s Preferred Specialist GRC Partner for the UK in November 2009.

At this point su53 had five support clients, who would call for advice or remote support when needed, and this demand was growing quickly. In response, su53 opened a nearshore Support Centre in Belfast in January 2010, and this is already helping us win significant multi-year support contracts. The Support Centre integrates closely with the Consulting Team and has the impact of bringing costs down and providing a solid process based capability for compliance reporting, GRC processing and support response.

su53 continues to grow, creating helpful new services, attracting the best people in the industry and applying innovative thinking to risk management challenges for clients across the world.