There are two leads to this story – FairIsaac confirming what we reported yesterday (their bill review unit was sold to Mitchell International), and an amazingly over-the-top example of corporatespeak.
We’ll do the serious stuff first.
The bill review unit sale will be completed sometime during FI’s Fiscal Q3. The price was not disclosed, but sources indicate it was “not close to eight figures” (FI sold several units for a total price of $65 million).
Approximately 200 FI employees will be affected, and the announcement did not give any clues as to their eventual disposition. We’ll keep you posted.
Now on to the corporatespeak. Here’s a passage that is so bad on so many levels that it is worthy of special consideration…(parens are mine)
“details of a reengineering plan designed to grow revenues (I think they just said that they’ll increase revenues by, wait for it, cutting staff and closing operations…) through strategic resource reallocation (uh, I think they mean tactical, except that doesn’t sound as smart) and improve profitability through significant cost reduction (we’re going to slash our way to profits!). Key components of the plan include rationalizing the business portfolio (dumping businesses we should not have bought in the first place), simplifying management hierarchy (laying off people), eliminating low-priority positions (laying off more people), consolidating facilities and aggressively managing fixed and variable costs.
It is bad enough when your company is sold, but this SAT-word-stuffed run-on justification for dumping a business and firing folks will fool no one, not even the author’s high school English teacher.
FI got out of bill review because they didn’t give the business enough resources and attention, and probably should not have bought it in the first place.
Apr
2
