Companies that frequently lay off employees betray the implicit contract of job security and loyalty. This leads to a stressful work environment, decreased morale, and a loss of trust. This causes irreparable harm the company's reputation which deters top talent and reduces productivity.
Cisco is proving this to be true. They are at the end of Q1 FY 2025. The entire quarter was a dumpster fire and they know it. Morale is low, Stress is high. Productivity is limping along. They still don't understand the full impact of the last layoff and now there is rumor of another big one coming.
But not only has Cisco broken the employee contract, they've broken the partner contract.
Partner Summit is coming up in USA whilst partners are increasingly frustrated. Splunk sells direct, competing with CIsco's very own "partners". The Cisco partner program is a steaming pile. Partners have abandoned it in favor of competitors. They get Cisco pricing mainly to show how much better a deal they are getting from HPE, Arista, Microsoft, AWS, Juniper, Palo Alto, Fortinet...
no doubt they'll have to pay a little extra to buy this year's "Best Company to Work For" plaque