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Client savings:
Client savings:
$2 BILLION
$1 BILLION
Our Story
Invictus was but a seed for equity in enterprise software.
Fuelled by challenging experiences growing up in South Africa, our founder Doug Gibson drew inspiration from William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus and its connection to Nelson Mandela to imbue our business with the belief that every organisation and every individual has the potential to become the “master of their fate”.
Invictus
by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
From 1964 to 1982, Mandela was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town, South Africa. During this time, it is understood that he often recited Invictus to inspire himself and other prison inmates to keep going through the hard times.
Meanwhile, our founder Doug Gibson was growing up in nearby Johannesburg. He witnessed many injustices under apartheid and experienced the difficulties of a school system where corporal punishment was commonplace. In the wake of these experiences, Doug found inspiration in the poem and its connection to Nelson Mandela.
Over several decades working in enterprise software, Doug noticed certain injustices in the industry and observed that organisations would often feel frustrated by the lack of clarity around enterprise software contracts. They sometimes felt “in the dark‘’ or “bullied” by big software vendors. He witnessed many organisations spending tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on unnecessary licence and support costs, and even millions on failing compliance audits. Doug found that the cause of this customer spending was neither due to incompetence nor malicious use; it was simply because organisations didn’t have the time, priority or intricate vendor licensing knowledge to manage their software footprints effectively.
Doug founded Invictus Partners in 2014 out of a desire to level out the playing field between the software vendor and customer and help clients become the “master of their fate”, a line taken from Ernest Henley’s final stanza. Invictus, meaning “unconquered” in Latin, is about the tenacity of the human spirit, which emanates daily throughout our business. While Invictus Partners has grown into a global business, this remains core to our company’s ethos.
Our vision is to create global equity, value and control in enterprise software. Whether planning for a replacement of a core ERP system, migrating infrastructure and applications to a public cloud, or reducing your software-related spend, Invictus Partners has you covered for the “menace of the years finds, and shall find, (us) unafraid.”
What we do:
Invictus Partners releases the shackles of enterprise software agreements to help our clients optimise cost, realise value and maintain compliance.
Our mission:
To create $2 billion of enterprise software savings globally.
So far, we’ve hit So far, we’re just over $1 billion.
Why we do it:
Shifting the balance of power.
With Invictus Partners, you’ll get a perspective you probably won’t hear from software vendors and their network of partners. We understand how it feels to get screwed by a software vendor and it doesn’t feel good. That’s why we’re arming our clients with intricate knowledge about their actual software usage versus contractual entitlements, and the tools and processes to help them remain optimised and compliant, so they can negotiate with their software vendors confidently.
After years of working at big vendors, our team had witnessed many organisations spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on unnecessary licence and support costs, and even millions on failing compliance audits. We’re committed to building lasting partnerships with our clients and ensuring they feel empowered in their software vendor relationships, they never get screwed again.