Mohan, A Little Yes and A Little No...
As I am in ITWO for the long haul, I appreciate the conservatism
of Sanjiv and the CFO... ("Sanjiv and the CFO"... sounds sort of
like a sitcom.)
I do take your point about the way they "handle" analysts.
The CFO is the king of dead pan. Sanjiv is very gentle, though
intelligent, in his presentations. My only problems this go-round
were two issues...
* The "flat" year projection. I would rather there have been
NO COMMENT about next year until planning and budgeting
were complete rather than ANY, even a reiteration of something
said earlier. There is a kind of absurdity in this whole deal... the
absurdity that a projection would be BIBLE in any case.
* The "marquee" deal BS. Historically, a LOT of software companies have made their quarters through MARQUEE deals.
And ITWO is no exception. Given advances into new territory through MRO deals as well as the whole e-BPO initiative... and overall SOP (my acronym for SIZE OF PIPELINE), I'm not concerned
about the MARQUEE issue, AT ALL. They have a 6-9 month sales
cycle, which is fairly typical if not a little on the quick end of things.
e-BPO will capture some low-hanging fruit in their install base.
We have yet to even begin exploring the possibilities of the IMI
deal... which sounds like an end-around the entire necessity for
ERP.
I think these issues could have been dealt with better. And
one might have had every reason to assume a little bit of an adversarial tone going INTO the CC by virtue of just how far the stock had fallen. In other words, I'd have gone into it wearing all sorts of protection... and armed for ANY perceived vulnerability. But, that
is MUCH EASIER SAID than done. And, as I have said on a variety
of threads now, I thought the TONE couldn't have been much better.
I have long ago wearied of a certain rah-rah, happy horse hockey
that pervades many lesser company CCs.
Best Regards,
c m |
