| Abstract: | The enterprise software provider promotes from within to fill the spot, and the new prez tells Managing Automation there’s nothing standing in the way of an IPO. |
| Keywords: | CDC executive, CDC new president |
CDC Software, a provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and business services, has named Bruce Cameron, its former executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, president of the company.
Cameron steps into his new role in support of Peter Yip, CEO of parent company CDC Corp. Yip took on the additional role of CEO for the software unit following the departure late last year of Eric Musser, who left the company following CDC’s decision to rescind its planned initial public offering for the software division.
Cameron will leverage his customer-facing background to help guide the company through the current environment of economic uncertainty, he told Managing Automation. In the near term, he will focus the company’s efforts on the sales and marketing of its products from both vertical and horizontal perspectives. Having taken a mostly vertical approach to sales in the recent past, the company plans to augment the strategy by positioning its ERP and CRM platforms horizontally as well.
“Right now, with the economy the way it is, we can’t be pigeon-holed in a couple of markets, especially those that are suffering,” Cameron said in an interview. “We’ve evolved from a company that has concentrated over the last couple of years on getting all our technology assets on a common platform to a company ready to take advantage of every opportunity when the markets get back to where they need to be.”
Cameron came to CDC by way of Pivotal Corp., which CDC acquired in 2004, a year after Cameron joined the company as general manager. He also has held executive positions at QAD, Delano Technology, and JBA International. He will continue to oversee the worldwide sales and marketing of several of CDC’s software products in addition to his duties as president.
In its most recent quarter, CDC Software reported total revenue of $96.1 million from enterprise software licenses, consulting, and services, an 8.7% improvement over the $88.4 million the company reported in the like period of 2007. Despite the revenue gains, CDC ended up with a loss due to higher operating expenses, which Yip said the company has addressed by reducing facilities and related administrative costs and cutting positions. CDC will announce the results of its most recent quarter, which ended Sept. 30, early next month.
“As we have stated throughout the year during these challenging market conditions,” Yip said in a statement, “CDC Software intends to continue focusing on customer retention and delivering the highest level of customer satisfaction to our installed base, leveraging our industry-leading maintenance retention rates.”
During the past three months, CDC Software released major upgrades of its enterprise software products, including Pivotal CRM; Ross Enterprise; and Respond, an application for managing complaints and enterprise feedback.
The company also announced recently that branded food manufacturer Pinnacle Foods Group selected its CDC Factory manufacturing operations management system for a phased implementation in seven of its U.S. plants.
Cameron said there’s a good chance CDC will reconsider an IPO of the software business in the short to mid term. “At this point, there’s nothing from an internal standpoint standing in the way,” he said.
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