I simply cannot believe the extent to which the leadership is ignoring the competition and allowing direct competitors to overtake Cisco in many things. I wonder if they pay any attention at all to what the competition is doing? The mismanagement here is terrible.
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Product Manager Manager's don't become directors by sharing the dismal state of competitiveness... so they lie to the leadership, and blame sales for the poor performance of their portfolios. Or a lack of TME. Or CX. Or anyone else really.
Every. Single. Competitive. Analysis. I have seen in Cisco has over-inflated our competitiveness, and almost always understates that of our competitors. Usually, though, the directions to beat competitors are good, but they give false impressions to anyone but the SE's on the ground who see our competitors gear/software.
The PMs and (esp) TMEs know what needs to be done. Finance never gives you enough money to do it.
ignore competition and obsess over customers
simple facts
That’s the end results If you have more senior VPs, VPs, Directors and misc executives than engineers doing the real work. Just keep talking about social justice, Oprah’s new recipe, and Chuck’s golf handicap won’t cut it.
Honestly, my experience with Product Mgmt was different. They absolutely knew that there was a better way. They need the latitude to do it a better way. Sometimes it’s easy to blame people, yet walk in their shoes and you may find they often aren’t the core problem.
We have way too many clueless product managers directing engineering to build stuff nobody wants.
It is ultimately about a deep understanding of customer needs and identifying market gaps based on unmet needs. With this deep knowledge, Cisco could outshine the competition rather than simply monitor the threats after the fact. The competition won’t be able to keep up. That’s being a market leader.