SDL, who styles itself a supplier of customer experience management solutions, will be happy to close the door on FY13, a period that saw everything from revenue and profit warnings to litigation costs, while it was trying to restructure and transform.
Today’s trading update for the year to December 31 2013 suggests the worse could be over. Revenue expectations are in the £265.8m-£266.3m range, which is ahead of consensus expectations of £262.1m, while profit (before tax, amortisation, restructuring costs and one-off costs related to Trados litigation) should be in the £8m-£8.3m range. This is in line with reduced year end targets (see the history here) and ahead of consensus expectations of £7.3m.
Having rebuilt much of the business over the last year, the company is ready to tackle the market again. It will be a crunch year – customer experience is high on the enterprise agenda so if SDL cannot make way headway in an expanding market its long term prospects will be poor.