I was on a meeting earlier where open revolt over the performance review process broke out due to the Director on the Spectrum's inability to not irritate nearly everyone on his team due to his inability to think big picture versus dot I's and cross t's just so he can say it's done while trying to claim that TB reviews 1500 performance reviews personally and that's why we all needed to rush. Way to try to pass blame for his own control freak issues A lot of people are suggesting they are looking to exit or switch roles internally, resulting in a likely derailment of the initiatives underway.
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@14r maybe because we took the V (value) out of VAR and we're just a plain old reseller? And likely due to our overcomplicated purchasing terms that need 10 lawyers to review for 6 months before we can sell a pc
@125 💯. Our services and SOW process is pathetic. How can a $20 BILLION VAR su-k so bad at services and for so many years.
@10t it's ridiculous how long it takes us to get a SOW approved. If I worked elsewhere I would not do business with us except to order hardware. The moment that services get bundled into it all he-l breaks loose in terms of involvement from legal and about five other areas
@108 but who would want to acquire us? maybe for the partner relationships or legacy big accounts to transition but we don't "invent" anything (except how strategic we think we are) and have no IP to sell. We aren't experts in anything and have no clue how to integrate and leverage an acquisition - like the ones noted - CDW doesn't understand how to execute a business strategy or hire people who have expertise in how to run a tech company. I'm up for an acquisition, maybe we'd get some decent comp plans , account management and be able to close deals without spending years negotiating agreements over minor customer demands. Small deals should be done in weeks, not months. I get that strategic deals need more time but we spend too much effort on little deals with small margins and shouldn't treat them like they're $$$ deals.
@y4 We backed off of discount as part of the value proposition years ago. Don't forget that for a while we claimed we were cyber security experts, yet when the crowdstrike issue occurred we had no idea which of our own employees even had access or didn't to our own systems for days. Then with Sirius we were going to be full strategy and solutions providers. How'd that work out? Roll in the other acquisitions along the way, Focal Point, Amplified, etc. and every time we are going to be experts in that area, with scale, for about a month and then it's on to the next shiny object theme for the next quarter. The only consistent messaging for three years has been Leahy purporting we are an "all weather team" as our stock has declined by forty percent even with a billion dollar buyback designed to prop it up. We might, at this point, be better off to break the company up. Things are not working with our current model.
@vx I bet this clowns a 20 year seasoned cdw veteran drinking the kool aid thinking life is great while the titanic is outside his room sinking to the bottom of the market. The delusion for example in the federal practice is a complete joke is a prime example of how illiterate leadership is.
@rp Accurate
@wr isn't discount part of our branding?.....and we don't do that very well anymore
of course trust is important to keep relationships but we also have to deliver more than a handshake and ppt slides about our glorious future and exec bubble heads spouting whatever the marketing speak of the day is. Suddenly we're AI experts? we don't have an internal strategy, policy or processes to use just one AI tool, wehave every group off running with whatever they want with no guidance so who's going to trust our recommendations when they know how we run our own company?
@vx you must be a noob or a manager who could care less about a top performer leaving as long as the account stays within their team. This business is all about relationships, not discounts. Especially the top spending customers who trust their AM day in and day out no matter the cost and because they trust them. Clearly you don’t have any insight into long-term accounts that you have supported for years and how important that relationship/partnership is.
@vx You are clearly not in sales or have deep rooted relationships with customers. Try working with a customer for decades, knowing their business inside and out, how they operate and the key stakeholders. Yes SOME reps are invaluable. This was what CDW was built on , relationships NOT discounts.
@vn I've experienced it and heard directly from customers that they don't really care who manages their account, they want good discounts, reliable services with quick support and a sales team that's responsive but not aggressive. Sales will stress how important 1 person is and how the whole account will be destroyed if some random account member leaves -guess what? that's just BS and self-serving. No one person (especially our esteemed SVP/VP/DIR) level are so critical to an account that it will just collapse in minutes if someone leaves or gets fired. We need to get over this crazy entitlement and self-importance CDW breeds. We're not that special, really
@rj
Interesting take on Small Business. I have actually found the SB West Leadership team to be pretty strong and very caring. I have seen what is "out there" and that team is way better than most. They actually do care for their people and try to set them up for success. It is interesting to read your opinion on things. From what I saw the random one-off Seller who considered themself a "Top Performer" (because they had a startup blow up for them) who left, seems to have always been easily replaced. As much as we like to think the customers do business only because of us (the Seller), time and time again CDW has kept growing after an individual has left. Some who left landed ok. Others have struggled and realized just how good they had it at CDW. People should do what makes them happy. The life of a Seller is high stress with high benefits. Some enjoy that, some hate it, some get burnt out by it eventually.
@br There's a flaw in your logic. You're assuming that people moving internally to new roles would not have an adverse impact on business units. Guess again. The assumption behind that is likely that units work together as part of one organization. That is not the case, and with hiring freezes there is a concern that departures equal delays in backfilling positions. Internal organizational dynamics, based on how layoffs have been handled, have created a Lord of the Flies meets the Hunger Games dynamic that is pervasive throughout the company.
SMB exodus will continue into the new year based on what I’m hearing. Primarily SMB West as leadership is stale and useless and never grows/changes. Middle management provides zero value to sellers. Top performers who made a ton of money have left over last couple years and will continue to leave in search of competent orgs and leaders who actually have a clear path and vision to growth and success. AM’s leaving huge paychecks for something better even if it comes with a pay cut. Well worth their time and effort to move on.
I have been here for several years and what the online poster is stating resonates. There is a high level of dissatisfaction amongst coworkers that continues to be exacerbated by poor leadership. The "Director on the Spectrum" description is spot on and a phrase known to many internally within the organization. As for the annual performance process, it's ridiculous. There is no way that the head of Orchestration is personally reviewing 1500 performance reviews and the push to encourage employees to lower their own self scores to prevent "rating inflation" to appease her is disingenuous at best.
First - Love when people write things "the Director on the Spectrum" as if everybody knows who you mean... we don't. Like 3 people are in on your inside joke. The rest of us can't make heads or tails out of your incoherent posts.
Second - Please reread your post, or just your first run-on sentence and let us know if you honestly think that is something others can comprehend? I am sure it sounded brilliant in your head when you wrote it. It was not.
Third - Stating somebody has an "inability to not irritate" is a double negative. Why not say he has the ability to irritate?
Fourth - Did you really write "dot I's and cross t's ". You used an upper case I with nothing to dot! But used a lowercase T. If I thought you did it on purpose I would love the irony.
Fifth - Not a lot of believability in a statement of "A lot of people are suggesting they are looking to exit or switch roles internally". Just say "a lot of people are looking to leave" that sounds believable. A lot of people looking to switch roles internally is not a threat and frankly won't result in people leaving.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cdw-recent-share-price-slide-051016418.html