[4] Lanner Group was formed following a Management Buyout of AT&T Istel, a spin-off from the operational research department of British Leyland where, in 1978, the world's first visual interactive simulation tool was developed.

[6] Lanner Group formed in 1996 after completing a Management Buyout from AT&T Istel;[2] the company was initially named SEE WHY SOLUTIONS and was incorporated in 1995.

BL System's SEE WHY tool, programmed in Fortran 77[7] and launched in 1980,[2] was the world's first commercially available visual interactive simulation package and the precursor to Lanner Group's current core software product WITNESS.

[2][3] In 2006 the company unveiled a Java based simulation engine called L-SIM which is embedded in Business Process Management (BPM) solutions software.

On 18 March 2010 Lanner Group announced that it had secured a £3 million new investment deal with NVM Private Equity replacing 3i.