In a move that it hopes will double its business over the next two years, FileNet Corp is restructuring its European operations, and says its European operation will be bigger than its US business within a few years. The enterprise document management outfit believes the European market is under-exploited and says there is room for growth in such a fast moving sector. As part of the changes, Costa Mesa, California-based FileNet will split Europe into three regions, each responsible for both direct and indirect sales, rather than managing the business within national boundaries. The Europe Central region, based in Germany will be responsible for sales in Germany, Southern Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. The European South region, based in Paris, will deal with sales in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, North Switzerland, Greece, Israel, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. London will be the headquarters of the Northern Europe region which will look after the UK, Eire, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The move is designed to bring FileNet closer to its partners, which include SAP AG, Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co, enabling it to concentrate on the needs of its customers. However, professional services will continue to be managed within each geographic region in order to maintain an unchanging customer interface. FileNet says it has made the changes in order to meet its growth target, despite recently reporting very disappointing second quarter results (CI No 3,212). The company saw net losses of $3.9m down from profits of $2.5m last time, on turnover that fell 4% to $62.5m. Richard Newton, the company’s European marketing director is not put off by FileNet’s recent performance, and says profits have been hampered by its two major acquisitions of Saros Corp in March 1996 (CI No 2,833) in shares worth $102m and of WaterMark Software Inc for $61m in August 1995 (CI No 2,710). Newton said the changes within the company will enable it to operate on a regional basis, other than via remote operations. The new European operation will be headed by Ken Tyson, who has been previously responsible for the company’s UK subsidiary.
