What is the technology sales environment like at IBM these days? I am hearing it is a difficult toxic environment to work in with hefty sales quotas and PIPs immediately if you do not meet the full year sales quota. What other large company is any better if one had a choice?
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IMHO Bob Lord is the most incompetent senior IBM exec. His resume supports this. With the competitive advantage they had, how do you run AOL into the ground? So we know his strategic and visionary skills are non existent. Kavanaugh has too much filthy baggage and should simply be indicted and incarcerated. Now Rob Thomas on the other hand is a total douche nozzle. His entire sales organization knows how completely inept and unqualified he is as a sales leader. So my bet would be on Tobasco Tom to succeed the King Racist because IBM historically puts the biggest ahole available at the helm.
Seems like Rob Thomas and Arvind are largely responsible for making IBM such a toxic environment.
As a recent ex-employee I can assure you the sales culture is now so toxic that no amount of acquisitions will save the technology division. Having been at 225% of target for the FY management put me on a PIP at the end of the following Q as "you are not at 70% of target for the last 6 months".....ie they backdated my performance to include a period when I was well over target! Oh and being over 55 was not a factor....as if!
'Spreadsheet says' mentality rules so one less high performer gone and taking business from IBM ....
@1kib+1szWKxwd was it ever alive in IBM (instana) when i was there people external were saying you will be a busy boy, they brought someone in specifically to sell it - after 18 months not a single sale - the ibm effect!!!
I’m surprised no one in this business is blaming immigrants and Indian developers for a change
So are we seeing IBM acquire a single SW package with multiple functions, and via that action retiring multiple overlapping legacy IBM SW products. (eg getting far more efficient) If so, giving consulting fewer SW packages with more competitive function to market, and SW division fewer overall SW packages to upkeep vs legacy seems to be something IBM would benefit from.
Certainly IBM has more opportunities to drive sales with companies they purchase. That being said, it can’t work without knowledgeable sales people. If you make all sales people try to sell all products ( which is what they do with services) then you can’t expect them to be able to sell the value of the acquired products.
RE post : @1ycv+1szWKxwd
Instana is as dead in the water along with the horrible garbage product called Apptio that IBM bought to measure employee work for it's clients. BUT...the id--ts in the IBM CIO office do not know how to do these measurements with their Agile tools, as the deployment lead is nothing but a sweet talking clueless fool running around in endless circles. You get you pay for, don't you, AK ? You have lots of spare cash sitting around and your hands are itching to put it to use but you haven't a clue how to make money with your clueless VPs and senior VPs. Fire them ? No, Never mind, your ignorant IBM management friends will help you and no doubt you'll earn your bonus for 2025 before he-l freezes over.
"I think the problem with most executives in most companies is that they do not understand sales or how to sell."
Ginny came from sales and was pretty good at selling vapor until the customers called bullsh-t.
Perhaps it is just better to leave off the last 5 words and leave it at "executives in most companies .. do not understand"
@1ycv+1szWKxwd … In my view, IBM makes these acquisitions because it believes it can scale up sales globally better than the company it acquired. This doesn’t seem to work in practice. Instead, it simply dilutes the sales and tech sales teams further and they simply focus on the products they do know to retire their quota. The acquisition then doesn’t grow as desired and withers on the vine.
I think the problem with most executives in most companies is that they do not understand sales or how to sell. Same applies to consulting. They have never spent a single minute selling or delivering services, Many have never sold a thing in their life. So yes, very easy for them to say, put an employee on a PIP if they have not achieved x% of their yearly quota. There is no lead by example here.
IBM US has been risk-averse for a long time. The default position for shareholders and management is to allow a small amount of time for an opportunity to pan out, then quickly dump the opportunity if it doesn't provide massive amounts of profit within that time window. Rinse and repeat.
In other words...they are thrashing. They have a very short-term view (quarter by quarter), and jump from opportunity to opportunity in the vain hope that something will pan out. They do the same thing with opportunities that they do with their employees...give them a short window, then dump them if not immediately successful.
IBM Japan (just one example, there are others) takes a longer term view. They pick and choose their opportunities with care, but once they latch onto something they will stick with it for a while. Customers tend to appreciate that, even here in the US.
Arvind mentioned that IBM Japan Sales team met and exceeded their quota. Why cannot IBM North America Sales team do the same ?
When we developers are pinged to answer query from Sales, we can predict there is life out there. But right now its just dead. No more pressure for Dev team from Sales, that means nothing is going on. I am from Instana Dev team, is Instana getting sold in the market ?
Heard a lot of good experienced people put on PIPs and then later replaced with people 2-3 bands lower. Seems like this approach will negatively impact sales. I was a customer at a couple of large IBM enterprise accounts and we absolutely hated the revolving door of IBM sales reps and tech reps and could not tolerate inexperienced people still wet between their ears who did not understand IBM products. They wasted myself and my team members time.
do they ask the same of the Senior VPs and Directors in the Sales organization ? I think not which shows you the AK and IBM Management hypocrisy - it is "do as I say don't do as I do" (which in AK's case is sit and warm the chair for his annual bonus and tell everyone else that RAs are needed for the business of his bonus).
Yes, this is exactly what it is. Perform or you are out.