Shares plummeted in after-hours trading, resulting in a market cap decline of nearly $3bn as revenues for the quarter shrunk by 7.4 per cent to $4.89bn from $5.28bn in the previous year.
The bad news continued with pre-tax income down to $206m from $360m a year ago.
The company fingered axe sharpening restructuring costs of $142m as a factor in the decline as well as $105m of transaction, separation and integration-related costs, and $138m of amortisation of acquired intangibles.
The result was diluted earnings per share down to $0.61 from $0.78.
CEO Mike Lawrie put a brave face on things, pointing to a digital pipeline growth of 80 per cent in 2019 and a faster than expected move to the cloud by clients, although one that has left the company with "stranded costs".
Ominously for nervous employees, Lawrie also said during the earnings call: "Our delivery team was also behind on its fiscal '20 cost improvement plan particularly on workforce actions in high cost countries," before admitting that "it is taking longer to eliminate the head count as we automate activities."
IT support staff meets every week to discuss open requests and go over support tickets from the previous week.
The new CFO decides to sit in on one of these meetings, where one ticket that pops up for review is from a VP who requested support over the previous weekend because he was unable to log on to a system.
Pilot fish argues against the idea; the company isn’t in retail, and it’s closed on evenings and weekends.
But he adds, if the owners and senior management want to do it, IT can certainly plan accordingly.
That leads to more discussion, this time about expectations and compensation.
It’s generally agreed that responses would have to happen within an hour or two of a trouble call.
