It was good to see a broadly positive trading update from the previously much troubled UK-headquartered business process services firm Xchanging, following on from a generally improving half-time result (see here). CEO Ken Lever reported trading “slightly better than … expectations” with various new contract wins across its different lines of business, including at recently acquired US-based e-sourcing SaaS provider MarketMaker4 (MM4) (see here).
But as we have said before, the work is still very much ahead of management with legacy big-ticket contracts falling away as focus switches to smaller deals. This still leaves arguably the bigger question of what is it precisely that management wants the ‘new’ Xchanging to be? A procurement services player? An insurance software player? A technology services player? And in which geographies? Prior management dug themselves a big hole through chasing grand global ambitions. Current management needs to pay heed to lessons painfully learned.