In light and airy offices above the ancient Guildhall in Chipping Norton, a British company is doing deals and servicing household names all over the world.

Howard Sears founded Cobent to fill a gap in the market for affordable systems that can arrange and monitor staff training and qualifications.

In today's regulated markets there is a need not only to deliver training, but to be able to prove, unequivocally, that the training has taken place. The company makes software packages that help companies and Government organisations do all of this.

The company started up at Oxford Innovation's centre at Upper Heyford.

"The location had good connections to the rest of the country and was flexible, allowing us to take up more space as we expanded," said Mr Sears.

In December 2006, the firm moved to refurbished offices over the Guildhall.

The Chipping Norton base is the head office, and there is a sales outlet in Teddington, and a production facility in Manchester.

Mr Sears added: "It's not that we can't find staff in this area, it's just that it takes quite a long time.

“Because we were growing quickly, we needed to have those offices in places where the pool of relevant talent was larger, and we could get people in quickly.”

In future, they would like to bring everyone under one roof in the Chipping Norton area, although Mr Sears stressed that this was a long term goal.

The type of training controlled by Cobent's learning management systems can be almost anything, from video to classroom training.

But more and more customers have been wanting to get all their needs from one supplier so, increasingly, the company finds itself making training materials as well.

"We've been producing audio for training for some time, but now we are also being asked to do video," said Tony Dillon, Cobent's chief technology officer and co-owner.

"In fact this office was used as a set last week to imitate a location in a developing country," he laughed.

Making the video was helped by the availability of top quality creative talent in the area. It was part of a contract to supply training and management systems to a major global development agency that Cobent is very excited about, but cannot name.

Half of the company’s sales are in the USA, and the products are particularly popular with companies falling under the auspices of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Mr Dillon explained: "Cobent was originally set up to provide learning management systems that were affordable, to sell them to smaller companies.

“But when larger companies saw what we could do for the money, then they started to come to us too, and we took off very well, in the United States in particular."

The impact of regulatory legislation cannot be ignored. One of Cobent's customers has had plants shut down for days, and been fined millions of dollars for breaches of regulations, so spending money to be able to demonstrate compliance is a worthwhile investment.

There has been significant success in financial markets, too. Cobent counts many households names as its customers, including Barclays and Aviva.

Cobent has developed financial product training for the international arm of Dixons Store Group International — a group that includes PC World and Currys as well as Dixons itself. This roll-out delivered tangible cost savings for DSGi, so the platform is now being extended to cover sales and product training and is at the heart of a major health and safety initiative.

As Mr Dillon explained: "We do find that customers come to us initially for a very specific product or function, but when they find out everything that we can do, they tend to come back to ask us for more."

Mr Sears added: "The quality of our products and service levels mean that we tend to build long-term relationships with our clients."

The future looks bright and the company has never been busier, despite the economic downturn.

Mr Sears said: "We have noticed that companies are taking more time to commit to spending at the moment, but apart from that, we look very solid."

Mr Dillon added: "It seems to be the case that as regulation increases in all areas, this helps to make us more resilient to the effects of the downturn."

Cobent intends to expand the product range and move into the energy sector, planning to make it a primary market for the company within the next couple of years.

Only time will tell whether the Guildhall will be able to take the expansion.

Name: Cobent Established: 2002 Owners: Howard Sears and Tony Dillon Number of staff: 15 Annual turnover: Confidential Contact: 0845 456 0630 Web: www.cobent.com