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Story URL: http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,11023311,00.htm

Bungling Bull loses offspring's respect
Bull's services division Integris is distancing itself from its French parent company Bull after a history of poor results and an ever-changing business model.

By Suzanna Kerridge

Published: Friday 16 March 2001

In an attempt to throw off the financial troubles of the past few months, the company will be legally, not merely cosmetically, separated, according to John Gibson, CEO at Integris.

Bull announced a reorganisation of its business in January in a bid to bring the company back to profitability. The firm posted a turnover of only E3.24bn (£2bn) in 2000 - a fall of 2.3 per cent. It is also plagued with rumours that it will sell off its struggling server division.

Guy de Panafieu, CEO of Groupe Bull, said the company was looking for a partner to take a majority stake in Integris. However, the firm's insistence of maintaining control of the joint operation was deterring would-be partners.

Speaking to silicon.com, Gibson said: "This is a real split that allows Integris to have a real chance to align ourselves better with the customer. The price and service we offer is not done to cover our backs or to prop up the smartcard business or Bull's hardware division."

The company will go to market in only limited areas - the public sector including central and regional government, finance and banking sector and the police and civil justice.
Gibson said Integris wanted to avoid being the Marks & Spencer's of the services industry.

He added: "We won't do in the UK things we don't understand. We don't profess to do everything but those things we do can drive up a company's volumes of sales or reduce costs. What should worry the market is if we purported to invest six to eight sectors - especially with the problems we've had. We can't sustain that."

However, the company has decided to take on the telco market and will use the profits from the finance sector business to support it.

Despite the recent bad performance of telcos in the markets and the overall slowdown of spending from the telecom industry, Gibson believes there is still value in managed services for telcos.

"We might not be the biggest services company in the UK but we can find medium size organizations that need our help and we have a strong European footprint."

He added: "We've been a bit beleaguered but we will do well coming out of 2000. When we start to see the gross margin creeping up the market can take it as a good sign that we have confidence in what the company is doing."