The deal, which was announced on Monday, was structured on the basis that developments and sales of the Technique MIS continue, Cooper said. Both parties will sell each other’s products interchangeably, he claimed, hence the new name "EFI Technique".

Cooper added that development of the Technique MIS will continue at its Leeds office, where around 20% of his 40 staff are developers. Its Chicago office will continue to sell and implement the systems for US clients.

He said: "We had demand that took our products into over 20 countries and because of that there was a desire to input local support. This deal solves that instantly.

"Secondly, our customer’s needs are changing, and, as an independent company, we didn’t have the means to offer them all the solutions they needed.

"We had customers with needs that we knew would take us too long to put in place and being part of a larger organisation helps that."

He added that Technique’s global client base fitted with EFI’s aspirations to become better represented outside of the US.