Pessimism seems to have settled on this board. Let's put ourselves in Eric Doggett's shoes for a moment: if you had been chosen to run this company, so poorly run for the past couple of years, what are your opportunities? Where would you go?
Doggett's answer, not surprisingly, is to move into "delivering messages and data, including Internet access, over mobile phones and wireless hand-held devices." How well are they positioned for this? They have a speech recognition unit; is anyone familiar with the product? They have an infrastructure left over from the paging days; is this an important asset for new applications?
Are they well positioned for the wireless instant messaging market? Cf. Wireless Instant Messaging: a 'Killer App' for the Mobile Information Appliance Market biz.yahoo.com
They have cash, they've just aggressively written off losses, they are debt free -- all they need is good management. What does Doggett need to do? Here's his take after a few weeks on the job -
New CEO wants to 'reinvent' Glenayre
By DAVID BORAKS
Staff Writer
When Glenayre Technologies Inc. picked Eric Doggett as chief executive last month, the 40-year-old Raleigh native inherited a comfortable corner office at the company's Charlotte headquarters.
But the task ahead of Doggett is anything but comfortable.
With Glenayre losing money and with its major market, the paging industry, in a slump, he must plot a new course to ensure the company's future and revive its sagging stock.
''I view it as an opportunity to reinvent the company,'' Doggett said this week, after the one-time high flier among Carolinas technology stocks reported its third consecutive quarterly loss.
Doggett, who packs an N.C. State physics degree and an MBA from Duke, promises to rethink the company from top to bottom, looking for new, high-growth markets that take advantage of its technology and expertise.
The trick will be to get Glenayre's disparate divisions talking to one another, he said.
''The way this company has operated has really been as a collection of companies. . . . We have a bunch of capabilities between the groups, and as we have begun working together, a lot of light bulbs are going off.''
Specifically, he hopes to increase collaboration between Glenayre's core paging unit and the Atlanta-based Integrated Network Group, which develops voice messaging, speech-recognition and other products aimed at mobile and land-line phone companies.
His main target is what some believe will be the next big thing in communications: delivering messages and data, including Internet access, over mobile phones and wireless hand-held devices.
Meanwhile, he hopes to trim costs in what he calls the ''mature'' parts of Glenayre's business, such as paging equipment.
And he is pushing forward with several initiatives begun this spring under his predecessor, chairman and former acting chief executive Ramone Ardizzone: seeking a buyer for Glenayre's California-based microwave radio-equipment subsidiary, Western Multiplex; negotiating a manufacturing outsourcing deal with Solectron Corp.; and negotiating an agreement that would let Glenayre make and sell paging products of its chief rival, telecommunications equipment giant Motorola Inc.
Glenayre's troubles are the result of major changes in the paging market.
With the industry booming, Glenayre's sales skyrocketed from $15.5 million in 1992 to $321 million in 1995. Its stock price followed suit, leaping to $53.75 a share in June 1996 -- more than 3,000 percent above 1991.
Glenayre was selling equipment to nearly all the big U.S. paging companies. And it also carved out big swatches of market turf overseas, especially in Latin America and Asia, competing side-by-side with Motorola.
Then the market turned.
Growth in the number of new subscribers slowed, in part as mobile phone use climbed, and paging services battled fiercely by slashing prices. Paging company stocks fell, and it became harder to raise money for expanding and upgrading networks.
Nonetheless, Glenayre kept growing, in part on heavy international sales, which grew to more than 50 percent of its business. But even those markets weakened amid the Asian financial crisis.
As Glenayre's customers have suffered, so has Glenayre.
Monday, in addition to reporting another losing quarter, it announced $78 million in charges to increase reserves for bad debts among several customers.
And it expects an additional $10 million to $15 million in charges during the third quarter for a major restructuring, to be announced over the next couple of months.
With the latest bad news out, Doggett hopes he can turn his attention to that restructuring. He won't discuss details yet, but said, ''My goal of success will be if we've effectively repositioned ourselves as a growth company, with a vibrant presence in a growing market space.''
Doggett, who led a similar turnaround effort as a senior executive at Compaq Computer's Tandem Computers, is optimistic.
''One of the reasons I came here is that I believed that was achievable.''
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