Thread regarding CDW layoffs

This is leadership’s Frankenstein creation. They don’t know how to get the models to coexist because they don’t understand how things are bought and built by the customer in different buying centers. If IT is our target customer, then focus, put a stake in the ground and ditch any non IT offers like the software engineering component, the marketing and web design business from Sirius, and anything else that doesn’t address the IT buyer directly. Stop buying businesses like IGNW and others that primarily sell to non IT buyers, then and only then can CDW can unify its own business around the customer. IT is not dying, it’s just that there are more and more technical buyers at the customer outside of IT. Or another option is to separate those systems businesses and allow them to hunt in their own buying centers and let them succeed or fail without finger pointing back and forth.

"Could one of the sales-aligned people inform a backbone person - what strategy are you lacking at present? What are you hoping the executive committee changes to empower you? What are the huge systemic issues that plague the sellers?

I'm genuinely asking as I have no idea what goes on in that area."

I think it comes down to 3 main things:

• roles and teams are incentivized on different metrics and none of them are customer satisfaction. It closing the deal, billing against the deal, completing the deal. Nobody is incentivized with bonuses that go up when you collaborate, help other teams, enable other teams
• teams are silo'd. Middle management cares about their small group and express that it doesn't matter what other teams do, if there is overlap of responsibilities, if it's inefficient to do certain things, etc. so managers do what they want with their teams and sometimes that snipe's deals from other teams or means a customer doesn't even get exposure to another group unless a team decides they just won't help in a certain area
• leadership SU-KS at communicating. They share nothing inspiring. They don't talk about the issues. They announce stuff that rarely creates more collaboration and unity. Sour middle management does what they want in their space while talking about how much other teams don't matter. Upper management says nothing about how they'll solve that issue. Instead of talking about how to tackle culture and incentives they express that it's basically just a number game of sales and they are working on fixing some internal tools.

Right now, it's a real mess. Stuff that used to be smooth is all jacked up, and communication is about as clear as a mud puddle. Folks pushing one process, and others are on a different page. It's like they threw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and called it a procedure manual. You basically gotta learn by trial and error, which is crazy in this industry. There's gotta be a better way.

Could one of the sales-aligned people inform a backbone person - what strategy are you lacking at present? What are you hoping the executive committee changes to empower you? What are the huge systemic issues that plague the sellers?

I'm genuinely asking as I have no idea what goes on in that area.

It seems management is more open to listening to our feedback and acting on it.

Yet another reminder of why we need tech professionals leading the company - we need a unified mission that sets trends, rather than lags behind and follows.

Eccles' replacement is having meetings with management this week after announcements of some initial re-org with CSM's leaving the cloud teams and going to the lifecycle services org under Dowling.

Rumor mill has it that DV might just join us back in ITS again after their 1 year hiatus of trying to branch off to their own division of the company. Maybe someday we'll have a unified vision and execution if we're all under the same roof and DV can stop its shenanigans making it up as they go.

Could Eccles leaving result in leadership actually getting on the same page so groups aren't trying to snipe opportunities from each other or reject work that doesn't fit perfectly in their wheelhouse?

Oh wow, I thought he was the star of the show for a while...

"Perhaps Eccles also had enough and sacked it all off..."

No one is even remotely close to his culpability for the current mess. So he got tired of himself?

Perhaps Eccles also had enough and sacked it all off...

"Does this mean no more "mastery" time??????"

If you're waiting for a VP to help you block out your calendar for focus time you're already losing. Take charge of your time and block it out yourself.

.....I think you missed the sarcasm from the original poster....Mastery was a joke from the start, but the shirts might go on Ebay now for a mint. Limited edition!

"Anybody know what kind of special projects?"

Special projects: /ˈspeSH(ə)l/ /ˈpräˌjek(t)s/ standard corporate speak for an executive who has been removed from decision making of any kind while lawyers argue the departure terms and HR crafts the public spin

"Does this mean no more "mastery" time??????"

If you're waiting for a VP to help you block out your calendar for focus time you're already losing. Take charge of your time and block it out yourself.

I have no reason to think this SVP change is anything positive. If anything it tells me that exec management is rudderless and they just grabbed who they could for part time attention to DV so Eccles could officially step back.

Over here in ITS our impression of DV isn't great and swapping out one SVP aint gonna fix it. Unless he is able to establish and actually execute a vision that involves improved collaboration, unifies management across orgs to work together more smoothly, improves tools and processes, and reduces overlap of all these different roles, I don't see how it affects in the positive or negative. You have some really awesome folks in DV that we love to work with, but most seem pretty entrenched in their original company and give no impression that they are even a part of CDW or just show no interested in creating a new common identity.

Does this mean no more "mastery" time??????

Big daddy B Kirbz had to lay the american smackdown on the lazy li--y and send him packing to old england, the special project is triathlon training until the comp package clears

Special projects? Rest and vest

Anybody know what kind of special projects?

Whoever posted as "Christine L(eahy)" , I appreciate the humor, haha.

Yes, an email was sent out today saying he is stepping back for personal reasons and will work on "special projects." I saw in another thread here that he's dealing with some pretty substantial personal issues - don't know what those may be, but I wish him the best.

True