Israeli revenue management vendor ECtel has announced it is opening new operations in the UK and Singapore. Read the press release here.
The expansion comes at a time where there is renewed evidence of cost-cutting by communication providers. On top of the many stories about job reductions, there are also signs that operators are cutting back on capital expenditure. For example, AT&T have announced they will reduce capex in 2009 by 10-15% compared to 2008. This follows the prediction of ECtel’s CEO, Itzik Weinstein, who said that telcos would be looking to restrict capex during a recent interview with talkRA. In that interview, he promoted ECtel’s new strategy of leveraging its balance sheet to offer alternative, opex-driven, purchasing arrangements to customers, stating that these would represent a growing proportion of sales in 2009. Given that they have the confidence to invest in enhanced local support for their European and AsiaPac markets, it looks like ECtel is putting its money where its mouth is, and going on the offensive to secure and grow market share. Two good questions to mind. First, will geographical expansion lead to increased rewards for ECtel? Second, will rival vendors follow ECtel’s lead, or will they scale back instead? Watch this space to find out.
No more than a dead cat bounce, since the company cap is at 1/3 of its cash reserves.
The timing is rather interesting since ECtel has a couple of UK customer logos for a while already, same for far east…
Might serve as a window dressing, a prep for a potential acquisition.
http://www.davemanuel.com/2007/12/31/what-is-a-dead-cat-bounce/
Looking forward to continue watching and finding out.