In all the years that I've been at Dell, I cannot remember hearing a more desperate tone in managements voices, emails and actions. You wouldn't think that business is bad if you look at earnings over the last year, but at least in the Enterprise segment, the one where EMC management now runs the show and vxRail is everything, things are bad. Many reps haven't hit quota in a year, some not in over a year. With 2H coming up in a few months, I am expecting to see another round of layoffs in sales. There simply is not enough customers purchasing servers, networking or storage to maintain the amount of sales reps on existing teams. I hope and pray that I am wrong, but my gut tells me otherwise.
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July?
What’s up? Something big?
Dell smashing it? LOL..... its a commodity driven company with at best an over all mediocre sales force. Most of what you sell is fit for the inside sales vice outside sales model as its all a race to bottom in price. Compute , servers commodity pure and simple. Sold the storage and the terrible SDN Networking for 10 years, Most of the line sales Dudes couldn't sell either one to save their souls... why pay them 200 plus a year to sell a commodity product.
Direct sales will be the last to get hit with layoffs. Also, focus is on heritage EMC prods and cloud solution which have much higher profit margins. Selling servers is a race to the bottom. In sales, you need to adapt quickly or get out of the way. I am grey haired and been in sales (sys engineer) for 25 years at Dell/EMC had have never been targeted for layoff (although I would consider a buyout was offered since I am close to retirement). Otherwise, I would stick around. Still lots of opportunities for the hard working and adaptable folks.
Smashing it. Lol. Dude or duddete, it’s over. We’re in the eye of the storm and that only last so long. Smashing it, classic.
If results are as good using Zoom rather than local–ish talent traveling 25 to 50%, the transition started in Q1 to have more inside led accounts will likely continue. Why wouldn't they?
Inside sales people are at LEAST $100K a year less in salaries vs outside AEs or BDMs (in US) salaries alone add in the cost saved with no travel, and it's a cost saving move. Success with Zoom means fewer people are needed to cover bigger territories.
Then there's just the tech improvements, with more and more 'software defined' tech, Server and Storage and Networking will eventually have insane levels of duplicate Sales coverage, but that's been the case for last 5 years or so with Server and Storage, so maybe they at least will hang on to their AEs for another couple of years?
So, where you're at, AWS, Google and Azure are not a concern. Hmm. Move along, HR.
Must be a different country, we are smashing it and competitors are nearly nowhere to be seen