The disastrous C2E and Agile TSA programs are finally a winner. These 2 failed initiatives that had the goal of lower pay, limited career path opportunities, and devaluing SAs and TSAs have officially been declared as the worse Pre-Sales Engineering program EVER. Congratulations to EK and his team that drove this and wasted so much time, money, and caused excellent pre-sales SAs and TSAs to leave. You are finally a winner with this disaster.
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C2E and iACV.
2 terrible ideas that have destroyed the morale of the SE community.
It's not a mystery as to why so many have left for competitors and are now eating our lunch.
It is mind boggling that the competition keeps selling simple. They don’t over complicate technical selling. Here is interesting feedback that a customer gave to me.
Cisco set the standard for the SE in the tech industry regardless of technology.
The competition hires Cisco SEs.
The competition is beating Cisco using their SEs and their GTM.
Now Cisco has abandoned what worked for them and is now working for competition.
EK tried to shove this C2E and Agile TSA tu-d down the throats of customers and the customers and account teams have been very clear that they do not want this.
@1yyb+1kx12LA9 It started long before Koons. C2E was not the first step in the downward spiral.
The underlying problem is that Cisco's cost of sales is way too high for a company that really isn't growing anymore.
Given the continued complexity of Cisco software and hardware, customers need technical support to get their networks operating. Cisco's senior leadership want customers to pay for that technical support instead of allowing Cisco SEs to help customers through the buggy software.
Without SE help, customers will realize the ROI on a Cisco network is too low. This is the beginning of the end.
All that money spent on failed initiatives that were focused on lowering the cost of SAs and TSAs by lowering their pay and limiting their career path.
If they would have just paid the SAs and TSAs their value they would have saved money compared to what they wasted on C2E and Agile TSA.
The “Cisco SE” has been turned into a glorified secretary for the AMs. The SE Leadership has literally destroyed the “Cisco SE”. It started several years ago with Koons. TC and EK have made the “Cisco SE” the worse job in Cisco. Those 2 focused so much on the failed C2E and Agile TSA and lost sight of the “Cisco SE” provides. Until those 2 are gone, it will not get better for the SA.
@1nkb+1kx12LA9 agreed but also the SEs aren’t technical anymore. Lots of reasons (hires from competitors, from CSAP to be cheap and brainwashed, portfolio too large, management pushing them to be more salesy, etc), but you can’t expect a typical Cisco SE to do what an Arista SE does.
Is it some american problem, i am too european to care about?
".......officially been declared as the worse Pre-Sales Engineering program EVER."
Who declared it "officially"? I work with medium to large SP and enterprise customers and C2E is non existence within my ORG. If you are posting something, at least be more specific, maybe in commercial and possibly select customer, but SLED, Enterprise, and SP barely, if at all use C2E model.
Customers want technical relationships. The old Cisco had that and dominated the market because of that. Not any longer. The current Cisco pre-sales executive engineering leadership is embarrassing cause they are nothing more than politicians who take away money from others and pad their pockets.
Millions of dollars (money and time) were literally wasted on this then look at the layoffs happening. If more time would have been spent selling and being competitive instead trying to get everyone to adopt into this disaster, we might be in a better spot with our customers. The competition just goes out and sells. They even use this against us.
How this got to this point is purely a lack of leadership at every level. No one wanted to tell EK or their SED that this is not working. Even my SEM knew it was a cluster and told us privately it was but his hands were tied and he was told to stop bringing constructive criticism up on it.
Everyone was told what to say in business reviews to make it look good such as “We are meeting the customers where they are at.”
That was such a lie. Every leader should be embarrassed to be called a leader for not telling the truth on this disaster.
Who is this EK person? Is this person the original designer or creator of the C2E and Agile TSA programs?
Out of curiosity, if you’ve moved on to a better situation and you are happy with your decision, why do you spend time on a Cisco dedicated thread?
What did you expect when most management is from CSAP? Customers want technical SEs with customer experience, not salesy SEs. But they got into management and are remaking the place after themselves.
I am glad I left when I did and landed at a competitor. I tell every customer that Cisco is moving to virtualize SAs and TSAs which will result in less attention for them. Customers don’t want that. They want real attention from their vendors. EK and everyone that supports him are foolish for believing in it. They forgot what customers want and need in order to due business with you. Please keep C2E and Agile TSA alive cause it has increased my paycheck since I landed at a competitor.