Lunch at the Circle

L@C member Hans-Josef Jeanrond, strategic analyst and consultant, exposes the dysfunctions of financial markets being unduly focussed on short term financial results. This short-sightedness forces software companies with sometimes incompressible development cycles to make decisions that run against their best interests - and hence against the best interests of long term investors. Reconciling the different time and expectation horizons of customers, engineers and investors is a challenging task for the new company management.

Here's the intro in French:

SAP a pu développer R/3 pendant plusieurs années et investir un montant substantiel, sans être perturbée par des analystes financiers et des investisseurs à la bourse insistant sur des gains à court terme. C'est une des raisons pour lesquelles SAP avait un produit pour les nouvelles plateformes client serveur quand aucun autre éditeur n'était à un stade comparable de maturation. Aujourd'hui, étant cotée à la bourse de New York (NYSE) et les fondateurs étant devenus minoritaires, SAP n'est plus dans une telle situation privilégiée. Deux informations apparemment anodines dans la publication de ses résultats pour le premier trimestre 2008 font apparaître la pression et les effets potentiellement néfastes des exigences de la "communauté financière" auprès de l'industrie du logiciel. R/3 : le succès d'un projet R&D de long terme, affranchi de pressions financières à court terme

Read the full article, "Les aberrations de la bourse : un défi important pour SAP et sa prochaine génération de produits", on CIO-Online .com

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Co-funder of the Lunch at the Circle, Sophie Callies, has recently launched a new company, SO'xperts, specialised in marketing performance managment for technology enterprises. It's web site is www.so-xperts.com

A consulting company specialized in marketing performance management for the high-tech industry, SO’xperts mission is to help marketers and top management address four principal business challenges: how to acquire and keep customers, how to enter new markets, how to drive excellence in execution and how to measure marketing contribution to the business. What makes it unique is a comprehensive approach - from marketing strategy and benchmarking to performance improvement - that helps companies identify and pursue market opportunities while optimizing programs and resource allocation.

Co-founder of the Lunch@the Circle, Sophie Callies has a track record in driving marketing performance at worldwide levels in companies such as Apple, Netscape, AOL Time Warner, Alcatel and Cartesis.

You can reach Sophie here.