Official news about Connectiva continues to be notable by its absence, but the information leaked by an unofficial employee blog paints a grim picture for the Indian RA vendor. According to a recent post:
In a recently concluded meeting between top Mgmt of Connectiva and counterparts from “BIGGEST SI” of Connectiva in Delhi, its been agreed for sale of source code of Adapters and Parsers to “SI” in return to some part payments which are stuck…
Separately selling the code for parsers and adapters would beg serious questions about the company’s future. Although RA customers often place too much focus on the front end of RA software, industry insiders realize that parsers and adapters are the under-appreciated foundations of RA automation. Data must first be extracted and manipulated into a suitable format, before it cannot be analysed or reconciled. Software firms put considerable effort into developing the code for parsers and adapters, not least because these components tend to be the elements of any working solution which are most specific to the customer. A great front end is useless if the RA system cannot process the data taken from the customer’s OSS/BSS. Hence, as the unnamed Connectiva blogger points out, the parsers and adapters underpin Connectiva’s value proposition:
…how can anyone else buy the Company to help clear their dues, if part of the code is sold to one “SI” …considering Adapters and Parsers are heart and soul of any solution been deployed globally by Connectiva…What will happen to other users of the code, will they land up paying royalty to “SI”?
Another post on the site suggests that Connectiva customers are becoming disgruntled by a lack of communication from Connectiva’s management. The following is an extract alleged to be from a customer’s email to the blogger:
“While I am in constant touch with your company to understand the latest state of affairs and how far will this problem of Connectiva will continue, we hardly get any clear responses from the people on the call. Tired of listening to excuses and receiving project plans which are never adhered to from Acct Team, we forced Avi [Basu, Connectiva CEO] to join our calls, which has also not made much difference.”
Rival vendors WeDo recently said they expect the RA industry will undergo an “important reshuffle” in 2012, and hinted that they felt concerns about the viability of vendors would exert a growing influence over purchasing decisions – to WeDo’s benefit. Connectiva’s management team currently seems to have adopted the working rule that ‘no news is good news’, but uncertainty can also be damaging to business. As the unofficial Connectiva employee blog demonstrates, we live in era where rumours can spread at the speed of light. And other vendors may also suffer from falling confidence, if Connectiva’s difficulties lead customers to be more wary in general. 2012 is shaping up to be the year when RA really has to deliver on its promises, stop looking to the future, and demonstrates rewards in the present tense. ‘May you live in interesting times’ are the words of an old Chinese curse. For revenue assurance, the times are very interesting.
