Cirata boss admits to 'disappointing' figures for 2024 but promises 'growth phase' this year

An initial independent probe found issues to have been caused by an unnamed single senior sales employee. Mr Richards and Mr Miller left the company in the wake of the issue, while the value of its shares dropped by more than 90 per cent and more than 100 jobs cuts.

Stephen Kelly, who replaced Mr Richards as chief executive in 2023, has released a video update about the company’s performance as it published a trading update for the fourth quarter of 2024.

The figures revealed that full year bookings for the company were $7.1m. This was well below bookings guidance of $13m to $15m that the company described as an “achievable although demanding” target in October. The guidance figure was withdrawn in December, with Mr Kelly stating at the time that forecasting “has proved challenging”.

In his new video update, Mr Kelly said the company is moving in the right direction after coming through a difficult period, having its strongest quarter for bookings since mid-2022 and winning a $2m contract with a major US bank.

He said: “Q4 FY24 ends a year in which we have done much to rearchitect, stabilise and reposition Cirata for a predictable, sustainable, growth business.

"FY23 was the rescue year, FY24 has been the recovery year. It has been hard and it has taken a toll on our people but much of the hard work we believe is now done. FY25 is a new chapter – the growth phase.

"We see growth ahead and we have taken actions to reduce our costs further towards our target operating model.”

He added the company’s “land and expand” strategy towards winning new business is starting to pay off, with partnerships on a stronger commercial footing.

But he added: “We are however naturally disappointed on several fronts.

"Establishing greater sales cycle predictability remains a key priority for management to enable Cirata to enhance growth potential, shorten its sales cycles and the customer acquisition cost. In particular, we are still experiencing slippage on contract closure. This combined with weaker performance than planned in international and the DevOps business has resulted in a disappointing headline outcome for Q4 and the full year.

"We will however be responding to those challenges as we continue to drive a performance culture across the company.

"We will roll up our sleeves and step into what we intend will be a material growth year, which would be the first significant growth year for the company in five years.”

Shares in the company rose over 20 per cent in Thursday morning trading following the trading update.