Micrognosis Realignment Gives U.K.-Based Levin Sales And Marketing, Dissolves Old FD Tips Group

In an attempt to shore up its lagging presence in the North American trading room marketplace, Micrognosis Inc. has consolidated its previously separate sales and marketing groups. The changes could ultimately lead to a major overhaul of the vendor's sales and marketing strategy.

As part of the restructuring, the systems integrator has decided to discontinue marketing and development of its Stratus Computer Inc.-based Tips ticker plant software. The consolidation has united Micrognosis' field organization -- which encompasses sales, services and support for global operations -- and its marketing group, placing both under the supervision of vice president Peter Levin. In addition, as result of its decision to abandon selling the Stratus- based Tips, Micrognosis has dismissed several employees associated with its Tips development group. Among those who parted ways with Micrognosis was Debbie Seidman, the system integrator's manager of professional services.

In the reorganization -- which Micrognosis describes as a "realignment of its senior management team" -- Levin, who was formerly vice president of Micrognosis' European operations, has been appointed vice president of field operations and marketing worldwide reporting to Micrognosis president Hank White. Levin is expected to ease the burden on White, who previously had the sales and marketing groups from three regions -- Europe, Asia/Pacific and North America -- report directly to him. Under the realignment, White, who recently assumed the title of vice-chairman and president of Micrognosis, now has Levin as his only direct sales and marketing report. A Micrognosis spokesperson says that White previously had three direct reports in sales and marketing.

Micrognosis officials say that Levin will maintain a "country manager" in each country the systems integrator peddles its products in. Levin's two most senior direct reports will be vice presidents Pieter Hamman and Greg Amonette. Hamman has sales and marketing responsibilities for the Asia/Pacific region, while the newly hired Amonette will handle similar tasks as v.p. and general manager of North America. Amonette, who most recently served as vice president of North American retail at ADP, will have Dennis Weiner among his direct reports. Weiner continues to serve as Micrognosis' vice president of sales for North America. Both Weiner and Hamman previously reported to White.

According to sources close to Micrognosis, sweeping changes may accompany the appointment of Levin, who officially assumed his post on Jan. 11. These sources say that Levin -- who has tasted a degree of success peddling Micrognosis' Mips digital data distribution system, among other products, in Europe -- has been brought in to try to bring sales of Mips back from the dead in North America: Since Micrognosis acquired the assets of the former FD Consulting Inc. (TST, July 26, 1993), including FD's Mips and Tips software, the digital system's presence in the Wall Street marketplace has been scant.

One source says that Levin, and not White, will be calling the shots once Levin assumes White's old responsibilities. This source says that Micrognosis is doing "pretty poorly" in the U.S. and asserts that Levin has been recruited to "run" Micrognosis. "Peter Levin comes from a whole different side of the fence [from] Hank White and I think there's going to be massive changes in [Micrognosis'] Danbury [headquarters]," once Levin takes control, says the source.

Another source close to Micrognosis agrees that Levin has been promoted in an attempt to revitalize the vendor's North American operations. This source says that Micrognosis' Japanese parent, the Tokyo-based CSK Corp., has grown tired of the systems integrator's inability to sell in the North American region. "Any company of the size of Micrognosis that's not making more net new sales than they are, I think there's a limit to the time that the Japanese would fund the loss," this source says. "I think that this will in fact send some kind of message to the marketplace that 'we're not shutting the doors and we're bringing in fresh talent and we're going to try and be around for a while.'" Levin could not be reached for comment at press time; White did not return calls seeking comment.

However, Amonette -- who says that he expects White to continue to play a role in sales "to some degree" -- asserts that the appointment of Levin is just part of the overall "flattening out process" Micrognosis is going through. "Our marching orders are to get closer to the client base, to the marketplace, so that we can a lot more efficiently process what people are willing to buy," Amonette says. "If you had to say where our compass got off, it was in terms of efficiently processing marketplace needs and desires into product."

Amonette says that Micrognosis' first order of business must be to become more "market sensitive." Yet another source close to the systems integrator says that the only way Micrognosis can achieve this is by overhauling its Mips architecture. "[Micrognosis'] core product is in need of some major, major overhauls that it has not gotten, even with the looming 2.3 release," this source says. "The organization has been somewhat in disarray for a while.... Essentially their profits have been flat, for the last year almost."

But Amonette says that Micrognosis does not need to change the heart of its Mips architecture in order to sell more systems. "We're going to stick to our knitting on Mips, no doubt about it. But I think the battle is going to be waged on adequacy of the systems across the board," he says. "Once [the systems] have all pretty much reached parity, which all of us will eventually, than the real battle is going to be waged in the application world."

As for Micrognosis' decision to scrap marketing and development of its Stratus-based Tips product, sources both within and outside Micrognosis agree that the ticker plant software has outlived its usefulness. "The Tips product, the old ticker plant, has been losing ground steadily. It hasn't gotten any new customers and has lost most of its product base over the last couple of years," says one source close to Micrognosis.

Another source says that Micrognosis was forced to give up on Tips -- and to give everybody affiliated with the product their walking papers -- because the systems integrator's biggest Tips client, Quick America Corp., dropped out of the picture. This source says that the decision to scrap Tips likely occurred after Quick decided to discontinue development and marketing for Quick Trace, its long-delayed, highly unsuccessful North American-oriented quote service (Inside Market Data, Nov. 7, 1994). As part of that endeavor, Quick had hired the former FD Consulting to build it a ticker plant for North American Quotes in Staten Island in 1991. "The biggest client that Tips had was Quick [and] Quick went away," this source says. "So it really left a development group developing Tips on Stratus without a client. So I think they just got rid of their Tips group for that reason."

What's more, a different source close to Micrognosis says that Quick had been funding the development of Tips. Says this source: "I think the money dried up when Quick pulled the plug, because it was Quick, I believe, that was funding any real new work going on on Tips."

According to these sources, Micrognosis laid off between 15 and 20 people that were affiliated either with the Tips development group or with Seidman's professional services unit. One source at Micrognosis says that Seidman was a casualty of the systems integrator's decision to purge the professional services unit -- a unit which, this source says, was "commingled with the people working on Stratus Tips."

This source -- who describes Seidman as being very "valuable to the operation" -- says that the layoffs were not a reflection of the performance of the employees. Says this source: "A lot of the professional services work that we did revolved around Stratus.... It's just that at this time it is not in our best interest to pursue those lines of business."

In addition, this source says that Micrognosis' decision to scrap the Stratus-based version of Tips does not mean it no longer wishes to sell ticker plant software. "We're not getting out of that kind of business completely, we're just going to be doing it on the Unix platforms and on the Mips platform," this source says. "We're going to continue to pursue the feedhandling business, but not with the Stratus version of Tips.... [Our customers] are interested in Tips, they're just not interested in it on Stratus."

However, one source close to Micrognosis says that the "death" of Tips can be directly attributed to the Tips development group's hesitancy to develop a "Unix, analog- based" version of Tips. This source describes Tips as "well- architected," but difficult to install and maintain.

Meanwhile, according to a Micrognosis spokesperson, the purpose of the consolidation of the sales and marketing groups is "basically promoting the closer working relationship between sales and marketing in order to provide the best response to the changing customer and market needs."