Pretty good day - up 15% at 3x avg. volume & increasing market cap by over one million bucks.
I honestly didn’t think the new Chief Revenue Officer would make it through November, but maybe Fred will surprise all of us with a big Q3. Heck, maybe BIO-key will exceed 2019 guidance! With a new, "rock star", CRO executive taking th lead on sales, I look forward to (and expect) a significant year over year Q4 & FY 2019 even more so than Q3.
According to his bio, Fred Corsentino has some impressive accomplishments - SIGNIFiGANTLY growing revenue by tens of millions of dollars over the course of a few quarters. Now that Fred has been running sales for well over one year with BIO-key, and having launched several new technologies in 2019, there should be no reason not to expect a repeat.
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My primary concern, is the launch of their Channel Alliance Partner Program earlier this year:
I have been in this industry long enough to know that any technology vendor building a sales channel will not increase sales, unless there is significant demand for that vendor's products. Channel partners will focus their efforts on the products that sell for high margin and that sell fast. If the vendor's product(s) is not in high demand, then the sales reps will focus on selling other products from other vendors.
Over the past few years, BIO-key doesn't have the sales volume required to capture and maintain a partner's mindshare; for the past few years, BIO-key just simply doesn't add many new customers, and when they do add a new customer, they seem to very small, departmental purchases.
Further, with the OEM of third-party software that comprises ID Director for Windows, there simply is not enough margin to distribute among all of the parties. As ID Director for Windows seems to represent a majority of BIO-key sales, this could be/become an issue.
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My Channel Alliance Partner Program
Honestly, I don't believe that BIO-key will ever have the need for a CAP program; however, my experience has taught me that the value of the partner is to service the customer, not the vendor. More and more, the customer wants their own partner to perform services and provide support, so that they don't have to employ experts or learn something new. This is the "new channel", and it's focused on services revenue, with software margin as an added "bonus".
