Dillistone Group (DSG: LSE), the UK-based supplier of recruitment software to the executive search industry, announced a trading update for the second half of the year.

The group stated that operational performance improved in the second half relative to the first half of the year and, as a result, both Dillistone Systems and Voyager Software are expected deliver an operating profit for the full year.

Dillistone stated that this improvement means that operating profits for 2017 will be higher than current market expectations of £200,000 of operating profit, prior to acquisition related items and any adjustment related to the previously announced contract termination. 

Last year, the group announced that it was launching a new product called GatedTalent, designed to allow executives to share information with multiple recruiters in a confidential manner. Dillistone stated that, as previously anticipated, GatedTalent was in development and did not deliver revenue in 2017. However, in December of last year, Dillistone announced that GatedTalent had become the most successful new product launch in the company’s history, based on the volume of orders received at that point.  

“We are pleased that the level of demand is continuing, and that client subscription levels have more than doubled over the last two months and remain ahead of expectations,” the group stated.

Additionally, Dillistone said that the Board expected to "very significantly surpass" internal expectations in terms of the likely volume of compliance messages that their clients would send through the platform. 

The company stated that current expectations are that, prior to the GDPR deadline date of 25 May 2018, GatedTalent will manage the process of sending significantly more than 2,000,000 such messages.  “This is more than twice our initial level of expectations,” the group announced.

Jason Starr, Chief Executive at Dillistone Group, commented, "We continue to believe that GatedTalent has the potential to be transformational for our group. We anticipate that the approaching GDPR deadline will continue to drive business activity and look forward to updating the market further at the time of our 2017 full year results announcement."

Dillistone expects to announce its preliminary results for the year to 31 December 2017 in the week beginning 23 April 2018.