I was targeted as part of the RIF June 30th as a principal sales consultant. I contacted my old manager who is now one of the higher ups for the ECA group in North America. He had several calls from good people and was doing his best to survive the week long meetings with Hamadu. He had several calls from really good people looking to move from the Pillar to the ECA team.
I thought about what life would be like as an ECA, and quickly decided to take my severance package and update my tech skills with a new up and coming pre IPO company. I decided that the ECA position even if I got it was a bad deal. Here is why...
With the decimation of the pillar field sales consulting teams, the ECA is now in charge of everything. Tech support will now come from OD and India. Good luck flying all over the country for all the enterprise cloud architecture meetings at one HQ to another. In addition to all the cloud sizing, you can spend your nights at the hotel talking to the India tech team at 2:00 AM. Needless to say it will be more than one meeting as you have to repeat the same topics, and answer the same questions over and over to get the India pillar tech SCs up to speed with what you just learned at the onsite meeting that day. Don't worry about the lack of sleep, you will be out cold on the plane. You'll actually look forward to the flight so you can catch up on sleep. Its also a great job if you want to get away from your family. Since you are now responsible for all face to face meetings with all the products (Tech, Apps, Fusion) you will never see your family again.
Oh and hey, let not forget you lost your 600 per month Car allowance in 2015. Oh, yeah and that bonus structure was changed in 2016 so that 100% of your bonus is based on cloud. 10% of the Oracle revenue is what you get your bonus on, the other 90% of revenue (the easy money) the on premises revenue goes to OD.
And another thing... Oracle is not really sure you are qualified for your job if you have been working at Oracle for several years (you might be a dinosaur) so if you miss your cloud sales number (yeah you have your own number you carry like a rep) you might lose your job. So in addition to the pay cuts you now have no job security while your entire life (day and night) is dedicated to Oracle.
Don't blame Hamadu or Rich Geraffo, they are only Mark Hurd's puppets. The one person who is directing the changes is Mark Hurd. He will get what he wants. Since 2011 the old guard has been fighting the good fight doing what is right for the customer. Now that guard is being destroyed. If you didn't leave with all the pay cuts and bonus restructuring you now get to wonder when your number is up.
The whole thing reminds me of Circuit City when they got rid of the comissioned sales people and replaced them with hourly employees. Circa 2003: "In a dramatic effort to reduce costs, Circuit City has moved its sales force from a commissioned to an hourly pay structure, will pink-slip about 4,100 employees (3,900 being commissioned salespeople), or nearly 10 percent of its workforce, and will shut 10 more product repair centers." The filed for bankruptcy in November 2008, less than 5 years later. Coincidence? I think not. Customers like knowledgeable sales people that help them solve real technical problems. The don't buy from companies that just push products.
Its a universal law, like the first law of thermodynamics, energy is neither created nor destroyed. In other words you get out of a system a little less than the energy you put into it. You don't put energy into the sales cycle, and you don't get anything out of it.
http://www.twice.com/news/news/circuit-city-ends-commissions-cuts-jobs/29874
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/circuit-city-files-for-bankruptcy/
Here is the right thing to do. Start interviewing. The market is good. Do the minimum to get by at work and draw the paycheck. If you get lucky you will get laid off and a severance package about the same time you find a job at a company that likes you, respects you and pays you better. Let Mark Hurd reap his reward.