Having worked in backbone at CDW, I can tell you what will eventually be CDW’s downfall. First off, the leadership is sub-par. While I understand the need to drive sales, CDW leadership has not investing in systems that will reduce redundancies and maximize efficiencies. The leaders are more interested in meaningless projects that take up everyone’s time than improving on or investing in any of the systems that would actually help rank and file employees. And the leader I had was uninspiring and unhelpful. If something was wrong, this leader would talk in code rather than tell me what was wrong, leaving me to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to fix the error. In addition, CDW has antiquated systems (that don’t talk to each other) and most backbone support personnel are tracking important data on spreadsheets. Yes, a Fortune 500 company tracking data in Excel. Not only that, some data are tracked in multiple places and getting reports is an absolute joke. And this is in no way the fault of the actual rank and file employees. Almost all I worked with are incredibly smart and capable, but unable to do anything groundbreaking due to the issues mentioned above. It’s sad really. CDW used to have a reputation as THE company to work at. Now people are running for the hills and CDW is losing incredible talent. I imagine CDW will eventually look at backbone and decide to outsource to a company that can do the work more effectively and efficiently, while reducing costs.
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We should hire more people from Con Agra, ADT, Sears, Enron and Kohls. And more lawyers. They can fix it!
I think you are hitting on some valid points but you show me a company not overusing excel and I'll do a cartwheel. The business doesn't use a lot of the tools available to them as well as technology needs to bolster the plan for them. We rushed into Workday and SalesForce - only to realize no one seems to have a plan to centralize and use them for reporting.
Also, "I imagine CDW will eventually look at backbone and decide to outsource to a company that can do the work more effectively and efficiently, while reducing costs." - Have you worked with any of us actually in Backbone? CDW already aggressively outsources as much as possible.
Same experience with directors managing through spreadsheets where they copy and past everything from SN. Disorganized use of OneNote and requests spread all over through Teams and e-mail.
Talking in code is a bullying tactic, it translates to 'leave so we won't have to pay severance and payout unused PTO).
Primary post makes a point. Another thing i noticed is that negative attacts negative. CDW attracted a management figure from ConAgra who primarily helps only his special mediocre talented people and twists reality to smear those who'd out perform & out sale basically run circles around his special people. Conagra stock is dropping like a rock. Conagra blamed everything and everyone the town they used to be in but their own blustering nightmarish managemnt and now its showing in the stock market. I hope perhaps somewhat foolishly that Cdw doesnt mirror that level of dangerous stupidity.
Spreadsheet reporting over here as well over here. Why the he-l do we not have one unified system in place? This is ridiculous.
"Having worked in backbone at CDW, I can tell you what will eventually be CDW’s downfall. First off, the leadership is sub-par. While I understand the need to drive sales, CDW leadership has not investing in systems that will reduce redundancies and maximize efficiencies. The leaders are more interested in meaningless projects that take up everyone’s time than improving on or investing in any of the systems that would actually help rank and file employees. And the leader I had was uninspiring and unhelpful. If something was wrong, this leader would talk in code rather than tell me what was wrong, leaving me to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to fix the error. In addition, CDW has antiquated systems (that don’t talk to each other) and most backbone support personnel are tracking important data on spreadsheets. Yes, a Fortune 500 company tracking data in Excel. Not only that, some data are tracked in multiple places and getting reports is an absolute joke. And this is in no way the fault of the actual rank and file employees. Almost all I worked with are incredibly smart and capable, but unable to do anything groundbreaking due to the issues mentioned above. It’s sad really. CDW used to have a reputation as THE company to work at. Now people are running for the hills and CDW is losing incredible talent. I imagine CDW will eventually look at backbone and decide to outsource to a company that can do the work more effectively and efficiently, while reducing costs."
- - I work on one of those teams who tracks things on spreadsheets. It seems everyone is tracking things differently, and nobody is talking to each other. Spot on synopsis.
"I'm in ITS.....we supposedly spent all this money on Salesforce so we could just pull pipeline from sales, or so we were told, yet we have do weekly pipeline on an excel sheet, it's ridiculous."
I was in ITS as well specifically DV and the systems issue was a nightmare. DV was using Hubspot before finally transitioning over to Salesforce and we were juggling between the two. Interestingly with the Sirius merger, their Salesforce instance/setup, DV favored Sirius' Salesforce instance because it was designed with a more SERVICES engagement flow behind it whereas CDW's initial rollout of Salesforce instance was focused on rudimentary CRM transactional engagements/opportunities & chat notes.
Well I'd say, stay focused on your job to do well....but don't ki-l yourself as they'll cut anyone anytime. Keep upskilling - get as much vendor training and certifications as you can, keep your resume updated and be prepared in case of another poor Q4 and Q1.
"backbone support personnel are tracking important data on spreadsheets. "
I couldn't agree with your post more, it's like you are in my brain, lol.
I'm in ITS.....we supposedly spent all this money on Salesforce so we could just pull pipeline from sales, or so we were told, yet we have do weekly pipeline on an excel sheet, it's ridiculous. The last thing we want to do, and the last things AM's want to spend their time on is "hey where is this deal" type of emails, it provides value and moves the needle for NO ONE involved, yet su-ks our time every week. Not to mention it feels like all I do now is play hot potato with deals since we have overlapping resources in most areas but no one really wants to engage. This ship is sinking because we have people in power trying to reinvent the wheel by making it square........
the most recent comment here echos my sentiments exactly and im on the backbone side of things.
I’m on the Sales side and I appreciate this perspective and 100% agree.
I find it incredibly ironic that senior leadership echos the notion of “full stack, outcome-oriented approach” when servicing our customers, yet our own internal users experience an exorbitant amount of friction with everything they do on a daily basis.
CDW seems to be handcuffed by bloated, bolted together systems, MASSIVE technical debt, and an unwillingness or inability to rip the bandaid and progress into the future.
We’ve also forgotten what once made us great - the things we used to do so well…fulfillment, configs, accounting…are all major weak points now, leaving us looking like a horse with no jockey.
I’ve loved working for this company and I will continue pulling my weight when it comes to turning this ship around.
All the best to those going through struggles.