Oracle is in the process of consolidating global organizations in a massive reorganization focused on strict cost cutting measures starting this week. Hardest groups hit: Sales, Marketing, R&D, and Hardware, Services will take a pounding as well.
All hands meeting will be scheduled for those affected Thursday June 6th and Friday June 7th depending on employee location in the global time zones. Many groups were informed they are to be moved to a new org, but in reality they are slated for severance packages.
Oracle is cutting ahead of an expected decline in revenue as the rebuild of Oracle cloud software takes place under DJ.
Note: this is a rumor. I have no inside confirmation and neither does my source. However here are 4 really powerful things that happened recently make me think this rumor is correct. The 5th thing has been a long time coming.
_5 signs rumor is correct:
_1. Executive departures and demotions in the past 9 months. They were aware of the massive reorg coming this week. They were not on board with the direction the company is taking.
TK: President of product development (13 years)
PA: Vice President Product Management - Oracle Database (22 years)
HD: Senior Vice President, North America Technology Solution Engineering and Cloud Customer Success (19 years)
MS from Sun is an individual contributor now, he was SVP of Microelectronics (Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, Oracle).
AZ ... and the list goes on...
TK wanted Oracle to make more of its software available to run on public clouds from chief rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as a way to diversify from its own struggling infrastructure, a view opposed by Ellison.
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/oracle-s-kurian-is-said-to-take-leave-amid-discord-with-ellison
The key here is a recognition of a failing cloud strategy by executives and an open acknowledgement of a lack of both growth and investment in Oracle traditional business. The executives are leaving after decades of service in droves because they can not see any sort of future for Oracle. No investment in infrastructure and a refusal to run Oracle cloud software in other cloud vendors infrastructure, means trying to win the cloud war without an infrastructure strategy. In the words of TK himself “You can not win in cloud without infrastructure.”
_2. March 21 2019: Oracle shuts down its Advertising and Marketing group.
Early in the day, our world-class in-house brand creative team was dissolved.
After more than a decade of building and growing a multidisciplinary brand and creative team with operations in Silicon Valley, SF, LA, NY, TX, Portland, and India, a MANDATORY Organization Announcement conference call delivered the dire news.
The shock was sudden, and disorienting. The initial numbness gave way to questions that couldn't be answered, for doing so is not part of standard corporate protocols for processes like this. Instead team members comforted each other. We helped each other to ready for the end of our last day at Oracle, to alert our colleagues, friends, and business partners, our agencies, and vendors—to minimize any disruption for them, while ours was full blown.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creative-we-stand-francisco-g-delgadillo/
_3. HR sent out an official mail describing the reorg, and said it will affect around 10% of total work force, with the creation of the new OGS legal entity.
April 29th 2019: Driving Efficiencies at Oracle—Global Corporate Project
Oracle is implementing an efficient, long-term and sustainable global services corporate structure. Our Human Resources team, along with other cross-functional teams, is helping to implement this effort. … Currently we are focused on reviewing Oracle's internal structure for global activities including … cross-country expense charge backs, research and development (R&D), and billable consulting with regard to cross charging mechanisms to help us be more efficient.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/SC246876
https://www.societe.com/documents-officiels/oracle-global-services-france-sarl-850981358.html
_4. Oracle k--ls R&D center in China. Director of Oracle human resources for the Asia-Pacific region makes the following announcement:
__ "per orders from the U.S. headquarters, Oracle is planning to make some major changes to optimize its business structure, which will inevitably result in huge multi-phase staff reductions globally.
U.S. computer technology giant Oracle is shuttering its entire Research and Development Center in China (CDC). More than 900 employees have been laid off, and the second round of job cuts is expected to happen in July.
According to several Chinese media reports, the layoff notice was made in an all-hands meeting on Tuesday. In the meeting, the company’s head of human resources for the Asia-Pacific region announced that per orders from the U.S. headquarters, Oracle was planning to make some major changes to optimize its business structure, which would inevitably result in huge multi-phase staff reductions globally. Following the brief statement were private layoff conversations inside the Beijing branch of the center, where about 500 employees were informed of their loss of jobs.
https://supchina.com/2019/05/09/oracle-to-lay-off-1600-staff-in-china/
_5. MH, the Oracle CEO is a numbers guy.
2010 Article: Why Mark Hurd is a Bad Match for Oracle
At both NCR (where Hurd was before HP) and HP, he cut expenses to extremes while working to increase his own income. This gets the financials in line and few acquiring companies look at morale as a unique problem and anticipate it in any case. Once the sale is done, the Hurd-like executive moves on to the next project and the lack of employee loyalty becomes someone else’s problem to solve. It is one of the most lucrative types of jobs in the industry but it takes a relatively heartless person to do it because of the adverse impact on employees.
NCR had been sold previously, and the result for the old AT&T was so bad that the acquisition was reversed. This means it would be difficult to sell again. And while it seemed likely that Dell at one point would buy them, that never happened.
HP wasn’t looking to be packaged for sale but Hurd packaged them anyway. He made the firm vastly more valuable to a buyer but stripped out much of HP’s R&D and employee loyalty to get it there. In effect to gain short-term advantages, which is consistent with a sale strategy, Hurd traded off long-term success. This showcased Hurd, after the fact, to be the wrong guy for a CEO job at a company that wasn’t planning to be sold.
source https://www.datamation.com/columns/article.php/3902836/Why-Mark-Hurd-is-a-Bad-Match-for-Oracle.htm
If you want to be successful predicting the future take a good look at the past. MH has a strategy. It's the same strategy he has employed his whole career, he make cuts to cost centers to keep profits up. MH laid off 25,000 people at HP, he has laid off over 23,000 people at Oracle since 2016, and that’s when things were good and revenue was growing. I expect layoffs to start end of this week.