Thread regarding CDW layoffs

Am I crazy that I don't get the big deal? For all the complaints I heard going in, it seems fine. Not perfect, but neither was SPS. I have certainly seen more "fixes" and things added this year to CPQ than I ever saw with SPS. It seems like we actually have a team always working on it, which is good. SPS seemed to just always have issues with nobody working on it.

Isn't the whole point that we will eventually layer AI on top of CPQ anyway and finally have less entry to do manually? I've been told that SPS cannot do that and that is one of the reasons we had to change systems.

At least get your facts straight. Sirius actually had a version of CPQ older than what CDW implemented. Sirius' CPQ was from "financial force" who is now Certinia. They did not even get a CPQ from salesforce. While the Sirius CPQ worked well for Sirius, Sirius also did not do the volume of transactions and small orders CDW does. Sirius had less partners, less products, and less volume. If CDW would have used the Sirius system, we would have broken it in 1 month with our volume and small transactions.

@k5 It was a mistake , posted the corrected terminology and link to the article. relax.
Still the point was "going live" now on a product that is already at the end of its life cycle, the irony of being so far behind. There numerous Quote to Order applications that plug into Salesforce and we picked the one that is the least modern and are having to customize the entire thing to fit our needs.
We purchased a company with fully implemented , mature instance of salesforce and CPQ, and scrapped it along with millions upon millions of $ to implement another (3).

@mm
We're catching up to try and be as bad as our partners and competitors.

I think we're doing a pretty good job since we're replacing people with interns, cheaper and less quality individuals, and foreigners we can be in rupees.

More mass layoffs please! We have to catch up on all those years we didn't have a mass layoff so we can be like our partners and competitors.

Don't complain though...just keep taking in the butt. You'll learn to love it like all our partners and competitor's ...they're used to being mediocre.

Hi y'all! Seasoned Sales professional here. I've worked at a few places in the industry including 2 partners and 1 competitor. If you think disliking your systems is unique to CDW, you are wrong. The tolerance for how vocal Sellers are allowed to be when they complain about the systems is somewhat unique to CDW.

@m2
The real funny part of all this....lots of our backbone still use and have to use AS400

Also everything still sits on top of AS400

@md
Lol contracts...what are those. We literally charge shipping on Drop Ship items that ship free from distributionto customers. Shady. We set people up on cost plus but then have a higher % final margin because we keep reg pricing discounts. Also shady since the contract is cost plus 3% for example but we'll keep all the reg discount (not charge a final markup of final cost with bids applied then add the 3%.

Our CEO also have a LEGAL fiduciary duty to the company and shareholders and she didn't do her due diligence on Siriusnand she doesn't do it on anything as can be seen by repeat failures.

But they won't resign or fire their supporters. Sad state of reality. Inflation up...prices up...everything up....except our pay (unless you're director/VP and above).

@mc Beyond you...it's in their contract.

@m1
That mentality is why they keep getting away with failure.

Leaders fail but aren't put on PIP's like we are.

Look at comp...they keep making it worse.

Control what you can control as the dumpster fire keeps burning then either keep your head down or jump ship. That's kind of cuck like behavior.

When you do complain though....they do nothing so I see your point....so as long as we clock in and choose to stay...we slowly get fu---d.

Great predicament for a company that actually had people loving the place and willing to go the extra mile. I notice almost everyone now clocks out exactly at 9 hours...or 4/5 PM CST

Paragon and others are also poaching tenured reps that had enough.

First $20k GP goes to pay back the draw...Leahy and squad should only be paid if shares get back to previous highs. How they have been getting annual bonuses is beyond me.

Imagine if everyone on every team complained and asked questions and held the "leaders" accountable like they do us. But most people have families and kids to feed so they're scared to open their mouths.

Remember when the "9 screen" went away in AS400?
We all lost our minds!

Sorry, I am just tired of the negativity. Things are far from perfect and there is a lot CDW is doing wrong. But I try to control what I can control. My attitude and my outlook on things are areas I have control over. I try to be heads down and do my job and take care of my clients. We have one guy on my team who just complains about CPQ non-stop in every meeting. It is annoying. We are not going back to SPS, AS400, or any other older system. That is not how companies work. Just get over it and learn to use the system already. The guy thinks every else feels like he does but he also does not let anybody else get a word in. Most of my peers are fine with the new system. They don't love it and they are getting used to it still, but none of them are spending their time obsessing over it either. This same Rep complains about everything. It eventually just makes us all tune out when he speaks.

@k7 you must be a new CPQ user haha. because this is now amplified by 10. get ready for any large orders to be held up in random approvals, orders going missing, complete lack of visibility and much more.

The people hosting office hours and whoever is answering questions in that email box have all been terrific. Very helpful and a lifesaver at times!

Can we bring back Peoplesoft and get off of Workday?

I don't care what system we use as long as it works. This one works fine. It takes some getting used to, but so did SPS. People like to complain about everything. I have bigger things to complain about right now such as the preorders being denied, AR taking forever to respond, us outsourcing so many groups, etc.

Pretty sure the guy next to me was asking for us to go back to AS400 and hated SPS until last year. Now he hates Salesforce and is asking for us to bring SPS back.

Tell me you know the difference between end of sale and end of life? I mean, you are in the Technology industry, right?

I have been using it since about March. I admit I felt like a crash test dummy at first too. I have gotten faster on it myself and better understand where everything is located now and how it works. I appreciate that they have actually responded to the feedback I gave and did make some changes. So, it is better today than it was when I first started using it. If they keep improving it, I am fine with it.

LOL. Tenured reps have left due to moving to Salesforce?
Let me know what company they went to that was using SPS.
If they are lucky enough to get another job selling, I bet they have to learn a new CRM there too!

@fq Ok fine, "end of sale" vs "end of life"
https://www.salesforce.com/sales/cpq/end-of-life/

Still the wrong product to move to.

@g6 Because systems that are purpose built exactly for a business requirement are the best. Same could be said when the industry moved from the green screen terminals to Windows. Reasons why the airlines and other industries like retail continue to run on these "old" platforms, they work and are purpose built to do that one thing perfectly with very low overhead.

for all those saying "it's not that bad" or "i hated SPS" ... just wait lol. our groups were the crash test dummies and it has been nothing but issue after issue after issue. it's NOT a good system by any means. we all miss SPS desperately and pray to the IT gods that someone with common sense here turns SPS back on. number of tenured reps have already left bc the workflows SU-K, management does not care anymore (our leaders have told us to shut up and deal with it, damn well knowing how bad of a platform it is) and this is EASILY the worst decision CDW has made, in terms of implementing a new CRM.

@g1
It's funny but true.
How is something as old as AS400 still faster for entering quotes and orders than anything else.

Why was our old Search Tool better than the last versions in SPS.

Funny also that tons of our backbone and systems will continue running on AS400 regardless.

We're going backwards with pay as well.

Good times!

I was so quick in AS400!

I hated SPS. Came from another company that used Salesforce. SPS was so clunky and made no sense. It also took 30 minutes to start! I at least understand the UI for Salesforce.

Only took us 20 years to get off of AS400 for SPS.

I remember the green screens!

This is such a downgrade on every level. We transitioned to a system that is broken.

I remember when we moved from AS400 to SPS!
THAT was a nightmare. This has been better than that.
But it is a low bar that was set!

2 days in... no issues yet. :)

@fc
My patience is all used up after 15+ years
They're literally trying to reinvent the wheel.

Bids used to get turned around in 2 hrs or less. Now I have requests for Services projects sitting for 1+ week until I complain to mgt and have them escalate.

They're using Salesforce to gather data as data equals $$$

Taking tasks that took a few easy clicks now replaced with 100 clicks. My fingers will be strong AF

@fa and it’s already end of life product from salesforce.

We moved to CPQ 2 months ago. No big deal.

Tool could be better but I will say that the support people have been very helpful. Those office hours folks have the patience of saints.

It only took 5 years to implement

I love how they made everything less efficient

Newbie just joined our team from the Residency. Said he only knows Salesforce and was not really even trained on SPS. He showed me a few things. I think I am still faster on SPS, but I am figuring it out.

Honestly, not as big of a deal as it was made out to be by some. It just a system we use to place our quotes and orders. We do some other stuff there too. SPS is still working, I just can't place quotes or orders there any more. I still need to work with my customers to earn business. New system is fine.

I love it.