I have said this here many times before : why dies Cisco need so many Business Architects? In U.K. they are, without exception, a bunch of completely worthless fat sitting at a high grade , drawing in MIRO board and talking collective rubbish with a big mouth. These overlay fat layer keeps getting fatter and fatter as technical people keep leaving in hordes. This is a technical company and the BAs know nothing about Cisco’s solutions, services or support. But they keep getting hired hired and wish to tell the techies what to do. Where do these drones fit into Cisco’s revenue generation process and WHY!? How do these worthless people escape getting LRed? I thought of posting this as I saw another poster with similar questions : “ I fear this will be the start of many quarters like this, perhaps indefinitely. Cisco is no longer a C-suite conversation. The ground that Cisco has staked out for 20 years is being encroached by many able competitors. Meanwhile, the people who can sell Cisco's technical vision, the technical community, are leaving in droves leaving behind the fluffy business "architects" who do not know a VLAN from a van. Amidst this, all we talk about is diversity and inclusion. A sad state of affairs for a mighty company.”
39 replies (most recent on top)
The blindness of leadership is mind boggling. It is as bad as the current administration where no one has a grip on reality and none want to hear the hard truth. Pushing back gets you fired. Ask UV. He knew his stuff and is well respected in the industry. However, bring in MM (incidentally not very well respected) and you get fired for speaking anything. If the answer or feedback is anything other than "yes" then you are gone. She continues to bring in more useless salesforce imbecils so she has the consistent yes. It will be a very happy day at csco when they get rid of her, her cronies, chuckie boy, and fran. Until then that light at the end of the tunnel is probably a train...
Ah the CCIE good old days. I confess hear managers tell me I am the favorite when it comes to engagements in cloud projects thanks in part to my CCIE. I don’t think it has the recognition anymore though.
The PAs and DAs are as bad as the BAs. Or worse.
Who the he-l is Matt Gillies? Never heard of him.
What do you expect? The softer Biz Arch role will be preferable to management than the SE, especially when that charlatan Matt Gillies is the top SE (SA) in the company. Worst of the worst and it all trickles down from there.
CCIE isn't even relevant to most of the products Cisco sells now. In fact, any new certification program you create may be obsolete in 5 years at the pace of change and acquisitions at Cisco. I notice very few Cisco Press books at Barnes and Noble now - compared to 10-15 years ago when Cisco certs were in fashion.
Cisco is only place where Cisco's own career certifications, even really tough CCIE/CCDE, are worthless and have zero value to career growth and prospects at Cisco and yet they fawn over this BA stuff. Not sure Cisco ever truly valued the SE role and wish it would go away and lots more BA people instead of.
I am not sure about how many BAs/CTOs have been recruited outside of Cisco in UK. I know of at least two who were recruited couple of years back from outside of Cisco. One of them has changed his designation to "CTO" in inside directory. Neither have any clue about Cisco's solutions/offerings/support/services even after this period of time, given their position in the company. To be honest, one of them is a nice person, humble, asks questions, tries to do his research before opening his mouth in front of customers etc. The other "CTO" guy is a blowhard empty vessel. Talks a LOT, understands nothing about translating customer requirements to solutions, tries to dominate every conversation saying a lot of nothing, a messiah of chaos and does absolutely nothing but profile himself to upper management and be arrogant to the tech community, who, as he has figured out, will not affect his rating. I won't be surprised at all if that "punctuation" related comment actually came from him. That's exactly his attitude. These people were kept in August 2020 in lieu of actual technical people who had the business numbers going for them. And the corrosion continues. This is the state Cisco UK is in today under DM and he is directly responsible.
@3uah+1dUZ7tjA Hmm, I’m not sure your comment is entirely justified. SG made some bizarre hiring decisions wrt technical resources, as did PS before him. The SE career path issues in UKI have been extant at least as long as I’ve worked for Cisco (>10 yrs). Two people tried to change that and failed. In the end I had to leave UKI to get a promotion, but it turns out that SE career progression problems are not unique to UKI. Why else do so many good, young, SEs transition to AM roles? It’s not all about money.
It would be interested to know exactly how many BAs have been recruited directly to UKI from outside Cisco, as opposed to converted internally. I might be a bit out of touch but I’m struggling to think of any.
I think what we actually have here is a changing of the guard. On the one hand you have Chuck and GE wanting to move to a true business solutions selling model to drive long term, strategic engagements but, at the coalface you have AMs and SEs targeted on product sales, which are very transactional.
The BAs should be the bridge (swidt) between the two. DM is not acting autonomously, he is delivering what his CoC tells him to. Of course the unspoken issue is that we don’t have everything else lined up to sell true business solutions.
Agree that SG had his critics. But under DM, the entire tech community in U.K. has been ravaged - senior people either pushed out or LRed in lieu of a hiring spree for expensive Business Architects, some of whom have taken to list themselves as CTOs. This is destroying U.K. tech and does not make any sense at all. You grind the nose of AMs/SEs/SAs to ground without any appreciation or career path and you patronise a culture where these nontechnical CTOs sit around on calls , embarrass Cisco in front of customers and they gave so much time in their hands that they start social WebEx clubs! For Christ’s sake, who has the time in tech community to sit in on these clubs?! Anyone with that kind of time should be fired first because they are clearly not needed, next the people who hired these BA/CTOs and then the BA/CTOs themselves. It’s like a country club culture for them here while they attach themselves to hard earned revenues and go on vacation.
@hmu+1dUZ7tjA Nope, not a BA.
@3nkg+1dUZ7tjA It just goes to show that you can’t please all the people all the time. Go back through UK related threads here. You’ll find plenty criticising SG’s leadership for being too weak, or too woke, or both. Cisco UKI has always been a ‘challenging’ environment in which to succeed as a member of the SE job family.
I'm a Business Architect. I have a double CCIE in Outlook and PowerPoint.
Given the amount of consultancy emails from David Meads in U.K., the constant associated stress of it imposed upon us, and the very poor, biased leadership, imposition of these waster “Business Architects” and non-technical CTOs on revenue , I wonder who these Cisco people are who voted the UK&I geo as best performing at Cisco? I certainly did not. I suspect there was some fudge in those numbers there. There are huge and rising discontent among entire presales community ( except for among the coveted BAs and CTOs) about the dictatorial nonsense that has been going around under DM in U.K. after Scott left.
I suspect these BAs are ways that wanna be SVPs like DM in U.K. tries to assert their seniority and importance. Having no metrics to measure the performance of these slackers mean not having to justify why they are on the payroll when actual technology leaders and performers are being LRed. But, at the same time, having some “Business Architects” and self-styled CTOs (“ Chief” Technology Officers who don’t understand technology) undoubtedly makes them look important to their management. All the while, people like us, who pull 12 hrs a day to get the numbers see no prospects of promotions or acknowledgment of hard work and dedication except $300 worth of RSUs a year and inflation adjusted pay raise. The situation is not just frustrating but parasitic. Time too jump ship
Unfortunately leadership talks about metrics so much but has no metrics on the impact of these BAs.
@2bgj+1dUZ7tjA IMHO you should consider yourself lucky that the BA did not open his/her mouth. Now, That would be trouble!
I had one sitting on a call from U.K. Taking the customer through security aspects of ISE. All of a sudden huge car engine noise on the call - the venerable BA was watching some car racing online and forgot to switch off the microphone. Just imagine the customer’s reaction.
45+ minutes into a strategic customer call, the BA has not said one word and looks lost on video then turned his video off. That is the value that BAs provide…… ZERO !!!
U.K. commercial AM here. Totally agree. All these BUsiness Architects and “CTO”s that have mushroomed inside of Cisco U.K. - hired from external companies - talk like they are John Chambers, have no clue about Cisco solutions, act as if they are God’s gift to human kind ( self appointed mentors) and all they do is cause chaos when it comes to doing any meaningful business. I work with one who was hired from an SI for reasons unknown to all of us. All he has done for the last couple of years is kiss a$$ to upper mgmt, talk down to everyone else, draw a lot of block diagrams that no one understands, give misinformation to customers and then deny doing it ( blame someone else). This toxic culture needs to stop and that’s on DM and Wendy.
@1hfc+1dUZ7tjA Not a distraction. This is a genuine problem. Think about it. There WILL be cost cutting, same as last year. If that happens then do we LR productive techies and protect worthless horde of BAs and CTOs for every vertical like they did in U.K. last year or, do we at least try to do things right and protect the techies in a technology company.
DM needs to grow a pair if he truly cares about Cisco UK and act in the company’s best interest.
@1hfc+1dUZ7tjA Sure. It’s the directive of the ELT that has these BA/CTO in our ranks and ultimately it’s them who are responsible. But that does not mean that these parasites are not a problem !
@1hps+1dUZ7tjA U.K. commercial here and ditto. We are asked to do the same, ie, tag deals on SFDC that had Business Architect influence. The joke if it! Even our manger was laughing at our team call over this. The thought that these jokers can influence anything positively is more insane than thinking pigs may fly. I and all of my team, did the same as you, did not tag anything. Problem is DM has several of these glorified con artists under his chain of command. Will he LR those BAs in an apparent admission that for the last couple of years he was wrong?
Hope DM gets his head out of his a$$, Wendy sees some sense and catch on. Otherwise, Cisco U.K. is dead in the water.
This smacks of a distraction and dividing of employees. The real problem is the ELT. Stay focused.
@gae and @1kzo agree with both of you. Last year U.K. Bedfont Lakes saw those psycho consultation emails from DM thrice in a span of 11 months despite the lockdowns. Innumerable technical folks were lost. Some of them led record business numbers during that Cisco fiscal year and were LRed while these worthless Business Architects were preserved on a shelf like ornaments. they know nothing about our solutions, service, support. They are just around to do bollocking on WebEx, draw on Miro and also to draw a salary. These people were kept in lieu of actual result delivering technical folks. David Mead’s hour of shame! I fear another similar barrage of consultation emails are round the corner - just wait for February, same as February last year.
The BAs or CTOs - as some of them have taken to calling themselves - remind me of maggots feeding on a dead body. The carcass in this case is that of Cisco’s. A dying giant.
In all fairness, speaking from experience, there are a few (only a few) BAs who transitioned from SE/SA roles. And they are totally fine. They know Cisco’s solutions, service wrap, support model and can hold their own.
However during last couple of years, we have had a few of these BAs who were hired from outside. Not only they have an inkling to Cisco’s solutions, they are totally political - some of them are hired from outsourcing companies and SIs and that is their modus operandi even today. After all this time they show absolutely NO inclination to knowing the technology. They are totally out of their depth even after couple of years , embarrass us in front of customers on calls by trying to control conversations that they do not understand and need to be gotten rid of. Cisco needs to do this to control the fat layers eating our revenue and to protect its waning credibility in front of customers.
@1noa totally agree! Chris Dedicote was straight as an arrow and knew what he was talking about. Visionary. Whoever is leaking info to Business Insider should leak some more info about these Business Architects and self styled “CTOs” eating away at revenue while not contributing to it in any sense at all. Questions should arise in media and attention of investors should be drawn to this self serving worthless layer of fat eating away at the soul of Cisco .
In UK we are looking at cost cutting to the extent that if we need to meet with customers to generate business, we need SVP permission from DM . In this scenario how cost effective is it to have these bunch of useless BA/CTOs sit around and enjoy the Cisco gravy train? There are quite a few of these BA/CTOs in DM’s direct reporting chain.
Someone should hold the ELTs feet to the fire and raise the question. If we do it on a regular All Hands, our name will appear on the LR list. This is supposed to be a tech company , not a political outfit. So what are these self serving BA/CTOs doing here?
Chris Dedicoat was never convinced by all these architects or Sales Specialists. He said the business market proposition should be simple enough for an SE to be able to articulate it. And I think he was right. I also think he tried to let Chuck know this, amongst other things, and was fired. They have exploded in number since he left/was fired.
More worthless you are, better your career graph appears to be inside of modern Cisco. Talk ambiguous, noncommittal mumbo-jumbo, scribble a bit on Miro , paste some coloured virtual post-it’s and the Cisco mo--nic management will go totally bonkers over you. There was a time when people needed genuine technical skills to be somebody in this company. Now, the technical skills have been replaced by PowerPoint weasels, Miro board scribbling and total lack of any awareness of what Cisco does as business and technology. Supporting my Cisco U.K. tech community here.
The problem is their management chain. These BA ( some of whom are self appointed CTOs) report to people who are non-technical. Their management chain has no clue that these are total waste of space and payroll. Their managers are secure and smug in their own ignorance and self importance . In reality, these people should be called out to state their value to our business and metrics should be defined to measure their worth. That in turn should get the smug, patronising smiles off their punctuation-correcting faces on WebEx and bring them down to Earth.
@1lps+1dUZ7tjA Hoping you are right. Getting rid of these parasitic BA culture will save the jobs of some genuinely good technical people inside a technical company and that can only contribute to growth. It does not make any business sense to carry the financial burden of these BAs when the company is clearly struggling to control costs. They don’t even understand an RFI from a customer. Why do we need these people?
Not sure about other geos, but about 6-8 weeks back, in U.K., we were asked, discretely, to tag opportunities in Salesforce where we had BA impact in securing deals. I tagged none as that was/is the case.
Trust me the bean counters are coming soon and the BAs will be minimized. Their lack of value is going to start getting attention.
I'm one of these so called business architects. Laughing and drinking my way to the bank while you cry babies cry
We have BAs in US Commercial and they are worthless. They do not drive revenue. Instead, they attach themselves to revenue. That is a big difference and the US Commercial SE leadership fails to see this.
Speaking of U.K.: Given the stock performance, I can almost see DM sitting around drafting the psycho “Consultation “ emails which will hound us in the New Year for a couple of months, giving us sleepless nights. And at the end of it, people who will get on the LR list are the ones who actually deliver business.
The coveted Business Architects will escape again even though they are inconsequential to Cisco’s revenue generation. firing the fat will mean management was wrong and they are never wrong! So we suffer and the company circled the drain one more time.
Grade 13 in US here. Totally agree with the OP. In last 7 odd years of the rise of BAs , I have not met a single one who brings anything of value to the table. It’s a toke that wedges between an AM and SE/SA and speaking from personal experience, all they do is ride on the back of the SEs.
BAs are politics personified. I am yet to understand why Cisco needs these people. Only justifiable reason for hiring them is window dressing to the customers.
To tune in with the previous poster who appears to be a BA: that’s all they are good for: correcting typos in people’s posts and not much else. I personally would have my secretary do that for me.
Actually Miro isn't that great a tool. It is way too busy as a Network Drawing app. Not sure who got a steak dinner to sell this thing to Cisco. If you want a cloud network drawing tool, Lucidchart is a lot more simple to use (and probably cheaper). Thankfully the management has not pressed too hard for everyone to use this Miro dog p-o.
The enlightened ones
But BAs do understand the importance of grammar, punctuation, and spelling in written English. You could learn from them.
You are also skating over the fact that most, although not all, BAs were previously successful account SEs.
Agree. I know a few such Business Architects in U.K. and at least one of them has the words “CTO” below his name in the directory. Who are these prima donnas and how do they hired? Who hires them? The “CTO” guy knows nothing about Cisco’s technology, doesn’t even know how to define an ip address on an interface - literally. But he is full of himself , talking about everything under the sun, from cloud to digitisation to security, when he knows absolutely nothing about any of it - just copy pastes stuff from what he hears from the tech community - all to profile himself to his new lady boss. At team calls you ask him a single question requiring any detail and the guy falls back to John Chambers dialect trying to cover for the fact that he knows nothing. Disgusting. Why are these waste if space BAs here while technical people get LRed and the rest leaves out of frustration?