…are big layoffs far behind?
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"Given inflation, has SAS experienced real revenue growth since 2010? Remember this is before Viya, so it clearly cannot be blamed."
Viya was post 2010 and revenue has not grown since. Most people can do the mental gymnastics to determine that it(Viya) "clearly cannot be blamed" is false.
Could someone please answer @ka question? I am also departed (but not dearly so).
“For those of us who’ve retired or otherwise departed from SAS, what were the key elements of the email or SWW article that’s sparked this discussion?”
@rg because I do
Duplication of effort in building VERY similar (but not quite the same), and not properly generalized complex software components/APIs has been a long-standing problem that SAS dating back to the mid 90s. There been attempts to address this but they all come down to varying degrees of ineffective management and lack of architectural talent capable of defining an effective common architecture and communicating/enforcing it across many divisions and stakeholder interests.
As long as 20 years ago we had several solutions groups building their own infrastructure that should’ve been done_right_once(tm) by a common platform engineering division. Their justification usually came down to “if we don’t do it our way”, we’ll miss scheduled delivery windows and tech trend opportunities in our respective markets.
This whole, dysfunctional fiasco resulted in adding to a growing a management hierarchy who took nearly a decade to grow revenue from $2B to $3B, while adding massive headcount with non-trivial duplication of roles and effort. In this same decade ~2002-2012), is there any doubt that the global analytics and data management market grew by more than 50%? Given inflation, has SAS experienced real revenue growth since 2010? Remember this is before Viya, so it clearly cannot be blamed.
Of those voluntary separations most were resignations unfortunately.
How can you possibly know this?!?
@qx The math is probably close enough to be reasonable for the purpose of this conversation.
The distortion is the implication that those ~4000(?) people were layed off. The vast majority were voluntary separations. Of those voluntary separations most were resignations unfortunately.
Details matter even on an anonymous site named thelayoff.
I hope you can see my point on the distortion of stating everything in terms of inflation adjustments.
@jp it’s no distortion to say that SAS has consistently reduced headcount by 2-3% each year for the past 7-8 years.
As others have said, it will be no surprise if this trend continues.
"EMEA Headquarters used to be in Heidelberg for years before weirdly moving to Cary."
Not weird if you remember the frequent non biz jetting by the fair haired bell ringer.
“SAS is a Global company. No work is moving anywhere” clearly said by someone who doesn’t remember the EMEA Headquarters used to be in Heidelberg for years before weirdly moving to Cary.
For those of us who’ve retired or otherwise departed from SAS, what were the key elements of the email or SWW article that’s sparked this discussion? Thanks.
@jz awww did you expect better on an anonymous bs site?
“we’ve consistently been right”
Do you have multiple personality disorder(Gollum Gollum) or are taking it upon yourself to speak for others as opposed to just yourself? Seems like another distortion…
“ Your denials don’t alter the facts.”
No but your distortions do.
You can talk about revenue without doing inflation adjustments for us…. You will. It say revenue is flat.
Your inability to distinguish between layoffs, voluntary retirement and attrition (the great resignation) continue to speak of your twisting of facts.
Those aren’t denials. They are corrections from intentionally distorted facts.
@hv In fact, we’ve consistently been right. SAS has consistently reduced headcount each year over that time.
Your denials don’t alter the facts.
@hs so after a decade of saying it you were bound to eventually be right. Maybe you will be right in January.
And why can’t you just say flat revenue. Why must you always do inflation adjustments for us? We all know what inflation is.
Do you ever see quarterly earnings reports that are phrased in terms of inflation adjustments over some arbitrary period of time? The answer is no and there is a reason for that.
@fr several of us have been saying that for about a decade.
Over that time, inflation-adjusted revenues have declined by >20%.
In consequence, headcount has declined by a similar amount.
Those of us loyal to the company don’t like to accept this trend. But no one has suggested any reason it won’t continue.
@fe yeah how long have you been saying that for now?
Well if the are mass layoffs, it'll hardly be surprising given SAS's performance over the last decade.
Anyone caught flat footed on that, has had their head in the sand, and can only blame themselves if they find themselves unwillingly out of a job.
Is Scotland that much cheaper than the USA? Tax outsourcing!
@en the last SVP of solutions was there too…
@ek
No, I huffed too many paint fumes.
“SAS is a Global company. No work is moving anywhere”
Lots of hiring in Scotland starting this past summer, and now head of “product stuff” is out of there? Work is definitely moving there.
1+1=2.
“wording around things going into effect early January had a foreboding sound also.”
I took that as “the paint will be dry by early January, so if you made it until then you’re good”.
Are you stable? You seem to make this comment in every thread.
@ac Work has been done in Beijing for that long also. And now it isn’t.
@a3 the wording around things going into effect early January had a foreboding sound also.
“ we don't ever see any ideas”
JP has a book club. Is that an “idea”? /s
Interesting how we don't ever see any ideas out of these upper level guys that actually help SAS generate new revenue. All we get is a constant reshuffling of the org chart every year or two.
@a9 SAS is a Global company. No work is moving anywhere. Work is already done in Scotland, India and the US for R&D and has done for decades
Someone else here said the big guy doesn’t like to do layoffs between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If that’s correct next few weeks should be interesting.
There were no cuts in the Art Department, which is safe.
Seems like more work under JP moving to Scotland or did I misread?
“Where I do think we’ll see cuts is at the “senior leadership” level”
I sure hope so. Soooo many “empty suit” directors.
With reorganization and elimination of redundancy, there will obviously also be a narrowing of the scope and amount of work.
@a3 I really doubt there’ll be any mass layoffs - that’d be counterproductive. SAS are still hiring developers and other roles. Where I do think we’ll see cuts is at the “senior leadership” level - the folks who’ve built unnecessary layers of management. Honestly, that’s long overdue.
I usually make fun of all the wrong predictions and say that someday you’ll be right.
This may be the time. That was an ominous email. “Reduce duplication” was used at least twice. It wasn’t quite reduce redundancies but it could be taken that way.
The televangelist did well. I wonder if we’ll go from weekly to bi-weekly emails about his children?