Definitely kill the dividend since this is a growth stock (and is treated like one by the market).
Incorporate medical research / and other research disciplines into their product offerings to help clean and annotate data for research organisations (as opposed to focusing solely on commercial enterprise/govt etc). This should be one of their product arms and is a massive market since it aligns with data science projects, which requires high quality annotated data. A question along these lines was asked at the investor tech day but no-one on the panel truly understood what was being asked.
Invest in their dataset offerings.
Aquire early-stage companies (not mature companies) that can help Appen compete and propel them forward.
Create a spin-off that will appeal more to the younger audience, since CEO's of tech companies are getting younger and younger. Scale AI appeals to a younger, more tech savvy audience, whereas Appen appears more stale on this front.
Look to add new directors who have experience operating at the executive level of market leading companies, since they know what it takes to remain a market leader. Appen needs to double down on its position as a market leader and continue to create and execute on its strategy. It seems Appen have simply sat back and enjoyed their unbridled success and rested on their laurels, when they should've been working hard to stay in front and dominate. The restructuring is an acknowledgement of this, but the need to be doing more, a lot more.
APX Price at posting:
$12.25 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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