"What Whitman internally describes as the "frozen middle" — the 20,000 to 30,000 people inside the company who are stuck in the past and resist change." - http://www.businessinsider.com/hewlett-packard-enterprise-salespeople-nightmare-sales-tracking-system-2016-7?r=UK&IR=T
8 replies (most recent on top)
Of course, @ajns! They are in Sales!!! Lol!
"Some of them couldn't even make mortgage payments." WHAT? I have to wonder what kind of mortgages these people have? Is this just complaining and whining?
I read the article... I laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing. The one thing that tech services CEOs consistently forget about is delivery. Listen, a two part equation exists. Sales = Delivery. Both equally important. Sadly, everything is about sales though. All the incentives $$$ and rewards and salaries go to sales. Then along comes delivery who actually has to figure out what in the world sales just sold or promised and then they "build the aircraft while it is in flight". Were delivery and support just as rewarded, you wouldn't NEED as many sales people or sales efforts. The end results would sell themselves. Too bad though, the generalized reward for delivery and support is a lay off slip.
If you think it is bad for the commissioned sales people, how do you think it was for account managers that had customers purchase services and products directly through them (no sales personnel involved). I was told I would receive a cut of the profit of the purchases (as the margins were very high - up to 75% profit in some cases). In the end, I got nothing. I was told that ultimately the sales group claimed the dollars. Now I understand why, they needed profit from my sales to cover what they should have paid the salesforce for their efforts.
Some of them couldn't even make mortgage payments. Of course Meg cares, she assigned some people to work on it and said she'd check back in a few months. Sense of urgency my a--.
I accessed the article through the link, and it goes much more beyond that. It basically says that HPE is not paying the sales force accurately. Hmmm... If sales are the motor driving revenue, and your safes force is not happy... How can it be possible that the sales people are not being paid as it should for so long? I simply can't believe this is an act of incompetence. This must be done on purpose to harm the Company long term. Investors can't see it because the stock is in good shape right now, but if I were the big ones I would sue Meg and the Board.
Typical MBA, blaming her people for her own failure while still collecting fat paychecks on their backs.
I don't think it is a matter of resisting change because they are frozen but because changing for the sake of change in areas that are successful/profitable is lunacy. Clearly the company is not looking for long term success. This is nothing new and has been the pattern for many years.