Some excellent research from company's website
firepond.com
firepond.com
FirePond Fired Up for 1999
"As more business-to-business applications move to the Internet, we see FirePond as well positioned to handle many of the front-end applications."
At last week's AMR Research Fall Executive Conference, we caught up with Klaus Besier, president and CEO of FirePond, Inc., a leading supplier of enterprise sales and marketing systems. The company has undergone a dramatic makeover since Mr. Besier joined as CEO in July 1997. At the time he started, FirePond (then known as CWC, Inc.) had 450 employees. He proceeded to cut personnel by 200 as part of the company's transformation from a company that used applications to sell services to an application software company.
Since that time, the company has added 100 new employees, including 40 in Europe. Virtually all of the management team is new. The newest additions include Ilya Gorelik, senior vice president of product strategy and development, and Scott Schwartzman, vice president of professional services. Mr. Gorelik joined FirePond from Parametric Technology Corp., where he had been the chief technology officer and senior vice president of product engineering. Mr. Schwartzman was the former director of professional services at SAP America. Another important hire was Graham Williams, senior vice president and managing director of European and Asia-Pacific operations. He had a similar position at Compuware/Uniface. The next position to be filled is that of the chief financial officer. FirePond considers rapid implementations to be one of its core competencies. The company cites a new implementation at General Motors that was up and operational in 100 days. A similar installation at a GM site in Canada was live in 45 days. While the company continues to invest in professional services (staffing now exceeds 150), it is aggressively seeking partners, as well. To date, the company has 70 certified system integrators including Ernst & Young, Cap Gemini, Debis Systemhaus, IBM Global Services, Intelligroup, and LG Hitachi.
Look for an aggressive expansion into the international markets next year. The company intends to add 100 employees to its operations in Europe (existing or planned offices in The Netherlands, England, France, Sweden, and Germany) and in Asia (Japan and Korea). In addition, Mr. Besier is broadening the vertical focus from primarily Transportation and Heavy Equipment Manufacturing to High-Tech, Telecom, and Health Care. This will also involve broadening the footprint to new areas such as data mining. Keep an eye on Mr. Besier and his team as the new millennium dawns. As more business-to-business applications move to the Internet, we see FirePond as well positioned to handle many of the front-end applications. It will be interesting to see how quickly the company expands its footprint to manage more and more of the customer fulfillment requirements.
-The AMR Research Alert on Supply Chain Management and Enterprise
Applications for November 23, 1998
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