CPR Vision

CPR Vision - Strengthening the Four Pillars

CPR Vision’s SaaS solutions provide strategic, digital, and CRM professional services to clients in the hospitality and retail industries. The services provided include campaign strategy and design, data science and business intelligence analytics, web design and development, content strategy, and loyalty program design and management.

Headquartered in Singapore, CPR Vision’s team of nearly 200 employees is scattered across multiple countries in Asia-Pacific and Australia. The company supports more than 150 of the world’s most recognizable brands across South Asia Pacific, Middle East, North Africa, US, and Europe. Some of these companies also operate multiple sub-brands that sit within them across various markets, creating a complex ecosystem with unique needs.

A key realization for CPR Vision was that a lot of their clients had multiple vendors performing various functions in their buying journey, loyalty engines, importing data and business intelligence. Combining their technology and strategic services into a complete package allows CPR to become a one-stop shop for its customer’s needs.

We provide our consumers with content by the right channel at the right time through our single source of truth CRM – The Enabler.

- Cameron Richards, CEO CPR Vision

The Enabler takes omnichannel consumer data and provides a seamless experience of a consolidated, efficient technology stack instead of having to juggle five or six vendors.

Where It All Began

CPR Vision CEO Cameron Richards’ first role in hospitality consulting took him to India, where he lived for a year before the company moved him to Hong Kong and then, after 18 months, moved him to Singapore. Richards rose quickly through the ranks, noting that the company’s “clunky CRM and loyalty technology” needed a serious upgrade. After being told that his proposed upgrades weren’t a priority for the company, Richards and another colleague left the business to explore their own ventures in 2000.

After spending some time experimenting with advertising and payment processing ventures in large nightclubs, Richards identified a gap in the eCommerce technology and services space and sought to disrupt the traditional advertising model, where agencies used and sold other people’s tools.  Instead of creating a time and materials business, Richards wanted to own his IP and create a unique fusion of technology and professional services.  

I wanted something that was easy to scale with a passive recurring revenue where you make money while you sleep.

- Cameron Richards, CEO, CPR Vision

After a few years of gaining traction with a few new clients and building confidence as an independently owned business, Richards sold the business to one of the world’s biggest media communications groups.  The company was an aggressive acquirer of businesses that owned multiple agencies, but Richards soon discovered the businesses they acquired were predominantly serviced-based offerings; they didn’t own the technology. 

CPR’s leadership soon realized the media group’s vision of the world and their company’s values were going in different directions. While the parent company enjoyed the dividends of CPR’s high level of revenue generation, it wasn’t willing to make investments in the long-term growth of the company.

They were of a sugar rush mentality, very short-term thinking. It wasn’t about the core, but rather being topical, looking good, and being all about the ‘sizzle’. The substance was missing. That wasn't in line with what we felt was right for the business, nor the people in the business.

- Cameron Richards, CEO, CPR Vision

The Decision to Sell to Volaris

Richards began looking for a new partner that would share his goals of supporting his people and helping his team position the business for long-term success. “The best facilitator of that, I thought, would be Volaris, because of their buy and hold forever philosophy,” Richards said. “They never sell anything they buy, and that was really one of the most attractive things in our early conversations. They’re not looking to just have this massive trajectory overnight. They want to really strengthen the core of the business for that long term.”

Richards found the Volaris approach to strengthening the core of the business a welcome change after spending the previous four years in a misaligned relationship. A critical part of building that resilience is understanding Volaris Group’s proprietary benchmarking metrics, which Richards has enjoyed using to find ways to better serve existing clients and land new ones. 

Within the Volaris ecosystem, there's this massive opportunity for growth and development. They really focus on strengthening the core, building up your people and your products, making then strong, agile, and scalable.

- Cameron Richards, CEO CPR Vision

Post-Acquisition Success

Richards likens CPR Vision’s journey to discovering Volaris to the early life of a caterpillar. By the time Volaris acquired them, CPR’s leaders felt like the caterpillar that had done the hard work and was ready for the transformation into the butterfly represented in their logo.

Volaris has given us agility and independence while still providing best practices to support us. If you’re stuck, there is an ecosystem to reach out to and peers to collaborate with. That’s great for personal development, both for me as a CEO and founder, and for my team.

- Cameron Richards, CEO, CPR Vision

CPR Vision has seen high organic growth and consistent profitability since its acquisition. The company’s leaders acknowledge that those levers have been strengthened since the 18 months they have been with Volaris. “Since being with Volaris, they've helped us stabilize and strengthen the four pillars: Our people, our performance, our product, and our profile,” Richards said.

The backing of Volaris and its parent company Constellation Software has provided CPR Vision with the ability to pursue growth through its own acquisitions, as well. When looking at possible companies to acquire, CPR Vision looks to add fresh talent and new capabilities in technology that strengthen their existing offerings. The company is also hiring dozens of new people to help manage their growth.

Volaris helps me with our continuous improvement and also fans my entrepreneurial vision with acquired growth, which excites me.

- Cameron Richards, CEO, CPR Vision