In last 4-5 years the ROI of CX was negative. All programs and offering were big flop
Before Maria showed exit door, the leaders in CX had all time party. Every layoff, the CX was trimmed. I heard in this layoff they zapped the complete Data Lake engineering team, a backend for CX. Data lake engineering leadership badly managed thus resulting fate of other hard working engineers.
There was a survival for existence between CX data lake and DnA data lake. Finally, DnA’s data lake also washed big time and let go large number of directors, who were eating up Cisco’s money
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It is very unfortunate to see the poor engineers in CX data lake where the whole group is axed. Some of them had real visa issues but thats the destiny. All this can be attributed to engineering CX data lake leadership. I came to know from a lunch in cafe chat in cisco that rascist attitude of the leadership landed in such fate of that group. HR should make a note for the responsible leader and blacklist her as per Cisco policy and throwing so many engineers, analysts and architects on streets
MM didn't know or care about CX as a discipline. She was merely focused on Customer Success, which is only one component of CX. She never understood our business, customers or partners and just tried to apply the Salesforce cookie cutter. We all know how it ended. Sadly nothing has changed for the better !
I heard that CX data lake leadership was running as their own IT org for CX which created a conflict of interest with main IT lead to complete trash off the group. CX data lake engineering was stepping on the others foot without knowing the head or tail of the cisco’s business especially finance and order mgmt team pis-ed off with the leader’s attitude. She was rude and used to cut-off people in meetings. Good that now we can work peacefully doing best for the Cisco
Without customer experience a lot of customers would have upped and left Cisco along time ago. Plenty of competitors that are willing to help adopt their technologies and help assist them. No one sells a product without support.
CX data lake engineering leadership would have done their home work and did better job rather creating ruckus in all groups and exposing themselves. Our group was frustrated with their approach, questioning our decades of efforts and achievements. Cisco business is complex, it takes years to build holistic solution. CX Data leader had no clue. She had neither business knowledge nor technical.
Cisco HR should make all efforts not to get such hands in future for the benfit of the company
Did we have a CX org before Maria
CX was created when Maria joined. It brought together the various services organisations such as AS (consulting, plan, design, implement), CS (on-site engineers), and TS (TAC).
However, the rot started the year before she joined with the launch of BCS in 2017. All Maria did was continue the trend towards software subscription and away from the project-based technical work that had been extremely profitable for Cisco.
Scam is not a right word but yes, it is a biggest flop of Cisco.
CX and CX data lake tried to run as an autonomous company not adhering to Cisco's standards and best practices which has been there since decades. CX engineering tried to hijack and cutoff the other core groups for which they paid price. Now the whole data lake axed, it is a peaceful environment to work and achieve the goals
Dont worry. Liz wil fix everything
To the OP - just because CX was ineffective does not mean its a scam. The CX model is what one needs to move to a software and subscription model which "guarantees" your revenue through a recurring revenue model by optimising the customer's lifecycle in adopting your products. The only problem in the Cisco case is that its products are an increasing irrelevance in a competitive industry where the hyperscalers eat into our markets ( e.g., MSFT in collaboration) and the other equipment vendors into our security and networking markets (as in PANW, FTNT, ANET etc).
Did we have a CX org before Maria - is this the solution engineering team or is it the tac or is it both of them ? I’m from core engineering (JD’s old group) so I never understood the idea of multiple levels of sales groups - like a product PM, vs a feature PM, and then account team and the a sales group , and then the post sales support. The overhead was huge - some times I’m like how can office space be so relevant even 20 years later !
Not sure how long you’ve been at Cisco but with all the acquisitions Cisco has done since its dawn, the data has always been a joke.
It never has been married together to have a single source of truth.
Many before Maria had tried to fix it. I have no doubt Maria and her friends fd it up more. I agree, the engineers got caught up in it which sux.
Is there a point to this post?