As we heard on RB’s disastrous All Hands call a few weeks ago, she stated that notifications were not done and would go on for some time. US Commercial Sales will be impacted and notifications are going out last week of January.
25 replies (most recent on top)
@2iqw+1ktj8ROZ
Amen. I’m in a BU and I absolutely know that to be true. I don’t know how customers get any of our gear to work without a competent account team.
Even if the AM showed go to the customer, what would they talk about? They don’t know anything about what they sell any more.
The account team is the final line of defense (like an NFL safety). Cisco products don't sell themselves. The customer needs to know a specific, responsive, and timely resource to call. Not just for sales, but product issues, delivery issues, sideways TAC cases, licensing messes, and the list goes on. Take their dedicated AM/SE away and you can be sure those customers are quickly going to competitors. Hopefully the new leader TC is wise enough to realize this.
If you think partners and going to be competent and loyal at booking Cisco business and handling customer issues, think again. Partners don't understand most of Cisco's complex ordering, licensing, and products. They are going to always take the path of least resistance - which will not be Cisco when the customer is fed up. Partners are going to do zero to generate Cisco product demand - it is a total box push nowadays.
Yes this ishappening already because laziness in Commercial...even with all this laziness when Cisco does show up it's all about ACI and DNAC until the customer just gets fed up and Arista comes with a solid and easier solution.
Arista is winning customers because they act just like Cisco did 15 years ago. They show up onsite and help customers with their issues. If Cisco does do away with commercial SEs (or moves most to C2E) then look for Arista to continue to grow in the campus.
Arista reps visit customers and get orders while Cisco reps sit on their couch enjoying WFH cr-p
Having been a Meraki PSS supporting commercial select, I felt like the specialists did more than the actual AMs/SEs but then again - I was in Meraki. I do think there is an opportunity to consolidate in Select - same for GES.
I disagree with you, in fact I see the opposite happening as Arista is taking advantage of the lazy Cisco sales reps and visiting customers to turn them to Arista l, this would further Aristas agenda and continue the eroding pattern of deployed Cisco switch ports.
Cisco would lose minimal revenue revenue if they fired everyone in commercial as resellers would still get majority of orders from customers
Doing this would add $10-$20 dollars to Cisco stock price with all the savings
I will have to agree with @2pde+1ktj8ROZ
If the account teams actually were more involved with the customers then I would disagree, but letting the partner do all the work isn't working well for Cisco, especially since the partners are not and will never be 100% loyal to Cisco and the partners tend to sell a line of cr-p just to keep revenue coming in.
Will Public Sector Sales Teams see realignment? FED? SLED?
@2hyz+1ktj8ROZ get real. Commercial is partner-led anyway. How many people gotta suck on the te-t of a single deal?
Agree with the Director (TD) in CCA needs to be let go. He provides no leadership and does not know what being an OD is. We need a real OD in HGO.
If they hack the AMs in commercial by LR and conversion to virtual
While maintaining about 30% of current, and move SEs to click to expert, Cisco will lose tons of market share due to competition moving in.
IMO, they can reduce AMs by moving smaller accounts to virtual and having SEs matched with multiple AMs. This would keep the reduction at a minimum while maintaining a customer focus
I've worked across different segments and in general GES is the strongest and can see why some changes to the commercial model are called for. You have some commercial AMs/SEs that are doing great work and have great customer relationships (mostly covering accounts that because of their geo are in commercial but in other markets would be in Enterprise). However you do have some AMs and SEs that just aren't good(either checked out or incapable). The real gap is in the PSS ranks....some see themselves as AMs for that architecture but in fact they are specialist and should be able to actually understand more than just the discount structure.
If this is true then I can agree to some degree. Most commercial SEs and AMs do next to nothing except call the partner to get what deals they need processing and then go dark again. This is not just the SEs and AMs but also the PSSs who are also absent the majority the time. The current commercial sales teams are more about racing to the bottom of the price then actually working with their customers on solutions because closing it quickly is, for some stupid reason, more valued then actually being a valuable part of a customer.
Should the rumors be true, what I see is some legacy-select commercial AMs being moved to GES, while the more territory focused AMs going virtual/gve. In the process, makes sense that 25-35% of commercial will be let go.
Most of Commercial sales org will be replaced by Click 2 Expert by giving partners and customers direct access to pooled inside sales reps, SAs and TSAs.
This is the right move for Cisco as commercial AM's just call the resellers to see what they sold in their patch so they can claim their commissions
AVP in West needs to be managed out of the business. He does not know what he is doing. Isn’t the turnover already enough justification.
Going to be more widespread than that. But yes included.
Commercial is implementing a major consolidation and will LR half of the employees including Dir and RM's as they transition to inside sales and SE pooling model
They need to include Managers and ODs in this. It is time for someone to fire the OD in HGO.
Is this only US Commercial only? What about other segments like GES, SP and Fed? What about other theaters?
Are managers and directors in commercials going to be impacted also