Pivotal Plans Global Expansion

Pivotal Corp. is planning to continue its expansion in the Asia/Pacific region by beefing up its staff nearly 50 percent by the end of the year. Currently, Pivotal -- headquartered in North Vancouver, British Columbia -- has 26 employees in the region, which includes, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia. Nearly 35 percent of Pivotal's annual revenue comes from outside North America. Pivotal plans to expand its business in Malaysia, which serves as its regional support center. The company plans to target such sectors as manufacturing, financial services, and hospitality and tourism, says Matt Duncan, vice president of marketing. "There is momentum in the Asia/Pacific market," says Duncan. "In Malaysia we have two partners, Optech and Eclipse, who are helping us. The region is starting to hear and see the value of where CRM can come into play. This is a region with a very high regard for its customers and interesting technology advancements, but they are also pragmatic users." While, Pivotal executives say they expect the expansion will help accommodate potential growth in the Asia/Pacific, Duncan was quick to point out that the company still feels that "the Asia/Pacific market, excluding Australia and New Zealand, are emerging markets," while central Europe is an established market. Duncan also refutes a recently published report that quoted Pivotal's regional managing director for Asia/Pacific, Fred Macaraeg, as saying the company is looking to play in the lower-end and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segments. Duncan insists that Pivotal will remain focused on mid-sized enterprise companies, which he defines as having revenue from $100 million to multiple billions of dollars. Pivotal is also likely to face more competition in the Asia/Pacific market, as software giant Microsoft Corp. prepares to deliver its MS CRM product later this year. "We do fairly well and have a lucrative business relative to Microsoft's presence in those areas," says Duncan. "We offer a CRM solution based on the .NET platform and even though Microsoft's forthcoming offering will also be based on .NET, it's targeted at the low-end and we are not competing in that space."