The rumor mill has continued to flesh out the details of this summers reorganization. This post is a compilation of rumors that have been triangulated by more than one person in different divisions.
The new Alpha Sales representative is known as a “Platform Sales Rep” the new Sales Engineer is the ECA. The new platform sales rep is responsible for Database, Middle Ware and Cloud. He will be responsible for cloud security. Oracle Digital will handle on prem security. The ECA will be the Sales engineer. Goodbye field App rep, security rep, FMW rep, Database rep, CX and DX rep. Its now one platform field rep. If you haven’t got the new assignments by now, you are in trouble.
Over the past several years Oracle has been pruning its veteran field sales force. Keith Block has left as head of sales and Paul Cross has left as the head of sales engineering. They have been replaced by less original thinkers. Hamidou Dia, the SVP of the entire oracle pre-sales started out as a Fusion Middleware Pre-sales Director just a few years ago. Hapless Hamidou is a poor leader compared to Paul Cross. His lack of vision, or ability to provide any direction and his inability to speak in complete sentences has done little to help with the pivot to the cloud. Rumor has it he is getting the axe this summer as well.
Since 2011 Hurd has sounded the call for "More feet on the street." Mainly he is and has been hiring new fresh recruits to Oracle to replace the seasoned veterans. This is part and parcel of the cost cutting program. Hurd was brought in to help make the change. This change in sales people is seen as necessary by the board. Basically, trim the fat.
Lets look at the cuts to the sales team made since 2014:
In June of 2016, which was Q1 of Oracle's 2017 fiscal year, Oracle let go of its chanel partner sales group. A great chasm suddenly opened and over 350 sales reps sales engineers vanished in a mass layoff. One day they were here, and the next ... poof the whole cost center was gone. The reasoning behind this was to fine tune sales toward the cloud with out having to pay partners for any cloud sales. Prior to this, in 2015, the sales team monthly car allowance was also cut. The message was sent load and clear to the veteran field sales team. “Start looking for a job else where." No raises or increases have been offered since 2011.
To make things clearer (after the channel partner layoff) the bonus structure was changed in Q1 of 2017 so that all bonuses are based on cloud sales. This is a direct pay cut, as in Q1 2016 over 95% of Oracle’s revenue is bases on on premises sales.
This June 2017, a massive reorganization of the entire oracle sales team will take place. This is the day of reckoning, where the Hurd vision of sales “whipping into shape” is fully recognized. The basic question for the veteran on premises sales team is “why are you still here?”
The Fiscal Year 2018 kick off meeting for the sales team has been canceled for two reasons. The first and most logical reason is that most of the people that they would fly to the kick off are going to be laid off. It makes no sense to spend money on travel expenses for people that are already slated for termination and release the following week. The second reason is the executives are going to try out the “remote” sales model. Hurd comes from HP and he is used to selling hardware. “How many cores do you need?” is the only sales question he thinks needs to be asked. He does not value the face to face meetings. The executive team is blissfully unaware of the 5 to 8 Cloud Sales Engineers at the customer site every day from AWS and Google.
The biggest catch so far, the thing that has Hurd scratching his head is that the one massive cloud deal that was closed by Oracle with AT&T was due to the effort of the old veteran pre-sales team. The database pillar pre-sales engineer completed a successful customer proof of concept leading to a sale of the Exadata cloud machine. She also proved out the capabilities of the Oracle cloud. For Oracle, the only appeal of the Oracle cloud to its customers is its flag ship product, the Oracle database. Mission critical applications with a large database foot print running on Oracle RAC or Exadata offer a tech drag, pulling those applications into the Oracle cloud. The question is will the Executives recognize this before they reduce (replace) the head count in the data platform pillar? She is safe for the time being.
The executives currently plan eliminations across the board in sales and pre-sales for all employees who have not tied themselves to a successful cloud deal. Its not a cut to the sales team head count as a total. Its a cut to the salary of the sales team. Its a shift from field sales head count to an Oracle Digital head count.
The sales reporting tools determine your survival at Oracle. Within days after the close of Q4, the reports will determine who stays and who is let go. The only exception is deals still in flight with attached cloud proof of concepts (POCs). The sales team assigned to these POCs will be allowed to stay on until the POC is completed. Walking papers will follow on the heels of the POC. You should have closed it in Q4 2016!
The message to the Sales team is “Sell cloud, the field sales jobs go to the closers.”
Here is who gets laid off in order of least importance to the company, pardon the group names. The politically incorrect group names are meant to give you an executive view of why they are being terminated:
Group 1 (Leeches). Sun hardware sales reps, sun hardware sales consultants (not selling sparc cloud), Sun SPARC developers not working on Sparc cloud. In the words of Keith Block, “Sun is Dead, Dead, Dead.” If you work on SPARC or Solaris so are you. Your number is up this summer. This is one of the cost centers likely to be dropped as a whole. The second most likey... hardware sales. We don’t need hardware sales on premises when we need that hardware rented in the cloud. CX and DX, customer experience and digital experience, pack your bags you are done.
Group 2 (Dinosaurs). Any pillar Sales rep or pillar pre-Sales engineer not selling deals totaling at least $150,000 USD is toast. If you have not closed at least 150k you have not begun to cover your salary. Your Oracle Digital replacement has already been hired. If your an Apps Rep or even worse a middle-ware rep or pre-sales with no cloud, you are as good as gone. Thomas Kurian is being blamed for the whole middle-ware fiasco that has never had a good track record in sales, but cost a huge sum in development. Rumor has it his days may be numbered. A ton of money was sunk in fusion middle-ware. Say your prayer’s you are done. The new bare-metal IAAS was designed outside of Thomas Kurian’s organization.
Group 3 (Retards). Any ECA that has not personally closed (and can claim credit) for a cloud deal. Any ECA who has not completed the certification and review board is also going to be reassigned to the “special projects cost center” and told to look for employment elsewhere and inside the company.
The new layoff method entails a mandatory 15 minute phone call with your (new) manager followed by a courtesy a fedex delivered to your home with instructions on how to turn in your laptop. The fedex also has papers to sign in order to receive any sort of severance it must be returned on the same day. In some cases the whole cost center is just removed along with all the managers and employees under it. No point in a face to face meeting as this might require travel. No point in a travel expense when you are just an expense to be eliminated.
Again the vast majority will have been shifted by hire and replace to Oracle Digital. Its not a cut. Its a “hire and replace,” a cut is when you don’t hire replacements.