ComQi Shrinks Further

It’s hard not to read between the lines with the latest press release from ComQi ^[1] – ‘ComQi announces promotions, organizational changes to drive further global growth‘

We won’t insult our readers, by doing anything other than writing here, just how we see it (they know, just as well as we do, that ComQi has seen only shrinkage, not growth over the last 12 months). The press release told us: –

^[2]
• Ajay Chowdhury, the current Chief Executive of ComQi is no longer CEO. The press release states that he is to become Chairman of the company, based in London – we were told separately in a verbal briefing that he is to become ‘executive chairman’ and that this was (still) a full time role. Readers I am sure, know how these things work and should not be too surprised to find out if he is only chairman until some form of severance period ends or the company is sold (note: that is our interpretation)
• Ifti Ifhar is to become Chief Executive of the company based in New York. Ifti is the current Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of ComQi. This is no surprise at all. Everyone who has been in ComQi meetings with Ajay and Ifti since Ifti’s appointment ^[3] have seen the dynamic in the room. Ifti was the man in charge. Now he is of course.
• Stuart Armstrong, currently President of ComQi America and based in New York becomes Chief Revenue Officer, with a global remit for revenue growth. Back in May 2011 ^[4] (at the time of the merger), we said “it was Stuart Armstrong and North America that has kept them going for the last 12 months for sure” but Stuart is not the salesmen he once was and as for his ‘global remit for growth’ I am sure Stu’s many languages will help him a great deal.
• Max Stevens-Guille based in Toronto remains as Chief Technology Officer. When Ifti was busy cost saving by cutting off ComQi’s limbs (witness no Israeli based Minicom R&D staff, even before Minicom was ‘sold off’ to Kramer ^[5]) we would have put a lot of money on the expensive Toronto development team being given the push. Max’s push (with the full support of the board mind you) to concentrate on ‘multi-channel marketing’, magic mirrors, needless Shazam and mobile phone integration that no one needs nor cares about has been much of ComQi’s problems. What they needed after the Minicom merger was a more simplified software approach (something that could have been more easily bundled with Minicom hardware), not overly complex, over engineered solutions.
• Stephen Allen, based in London is promoted to become President of ComQi, EMEA. Seriously? I mean seriously? Come on, you can give a guy any title you want but as we see little ComQi business (or employees these days for that matter) in London (let alone EMEA), Stephen is ‘President’ of what exactly? They need some salesmen and some sales not ‘Presidents’

Whilst Ajay Chowdhury says that this new structure has been put in place “to ensure we can continue to give our global clients the excellent service they expect from us”, we’d say two things: –

1. How does pushing executive titles around improve customer service?
2. Other than Care Media Holdings ^[6], we cannot think of a significant customer, global or otherwise that is still fully engaged with them and we doubt that the Mighty Phil Cohen has his head in the sand

The rest of the press release is full of the usual rhetoric, ComQi we are told, are “the leading cloud based provider in the space”, a “global leader providing a powerful multi-channel message management platform” and that “ComQi is a powerhouse of innovation”. We’ll leave you dear reader to think on that and make up your own mind.