One of the big mistakes made was eliminating consulting. Consulting pretty much paid for itself with customer billing and the remainder went to presale. These were industry experts that helped the business side of sales. UNTIL... Ms. Thomas decided consultants would no longer have billable objectives BUT they would charge the sales teams for presale. Sales was afraid to use consultants as consulting showed up on reports as sales costs. After the first year of no billable - guess what there was no billable to speak of. The consulting group received a new manager. On his first call he gave the entire team a mulligan for no billing and raised the consulting rate to $300. When tomatoes don't sell, raise the price and see how that works out. This skillful manager continually laid off consultants until he and his boss got the ax. Nice work boys. One of the other quotes from the consulting manager was 'we are not a Deloitte YET'.
That one he got right.
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@TC - yes, it had great data mgt and architecture collateral and IP. I'm using parts of it in my new job and it is making me a success. Thanks for RIFing me A.T. - best thing that could have happened to me
Actually, consulting paid for itself until VL’s son-in-law was placed n charge of consulting. This “genius” placed a minimum price tag of $1,000,000 on consulting engagements where most historical projects were in the low to mid-$100,000 range. As a result, professional services realized negative margin for the first time in the company’s history.
PS lacked the leadership to aggregate and manage the collateral for the betterment of the organisation as a whole. It looked to run as a series of fiefdoms, and as featured in so many discussion points here, the great focus was to manage up.
Teradata PS used to have (still has but hardly anyone knows where it is and how good it is) data management and data architecture Collateral and IP as good as any of the consulting firms.
It just lacked PS management in places and the clout to position and sell itself.
A self defeating organisation these days.