Conference 7.286::digital

    
    Can anyone respond to what they have heard regarding Sales Support in
    Colorado Springs?
    
    
    
    Much Appreciated!
    deb
    

	San Francisco Office
	Sales Support

	4 - TSFO 
	2 - Transferred (Me, Government and Semiconductor)
	9 - Staying

	Sales

	2 - Transferred
	28 - Staying

	Sacramento 
	Sales Support

	2 - TSFO
	7 - Staying

	Sales

	2 - TSFO
	10 - Staying

Total:  10 TSFO of 64 or About 16%

Larry

    i told folks a coupla years ago that putting sales support under sales
    managements thumb was a disaster. we now have what were once district
    offices with 4, 5, or 9 technical support folks left. and the ranks are
    being depleted further each week. so ok. have the oems or vars or
    whatever the hell we call them this week sell the stuff. don't ask me
    to come in and fix their screw ups. that has gotten old in a hurry.

    In Wichita, Kansas, a remote site:
    
    We've gone from 4 sales support to 1 over the last 1 1/2 year.
    
    	1 - transfered INTO Sales Support
    	0 - resigned
    	2 - TFSO
    	2 - transfered out of Sales Support (including me)
    	1 - left in Sales Support, and feeling alone and shaken.
    
    These people were/are GOOD, too.
    
    The new sales model demands that sales people become experts in their
    focus industry.  The fallacy with this is that you cannot become an
    expert from a book or training only.  I had 11+ years of hands-on
    experience in manufacturing before coming here to support mfg accounts.
    Now the sales reps will be expected to learn this, as well as our
    products, competitor's products and strategies, the customer's
    business, technology and processes, how to get things done within
    Digital, and many other things I've not listed (or can't think of...).
    IMHO, this is too much to ask of one person, and remote support in these
    areas is very limiting.  Time will tell if this has been thought out
    well enough to avoid big problems.
    
    (Incidently, I worked on a "well known" account over the past 2
    years.  They changed their sales model drastically, and the revenue
    flow was so disturbed that survival is now in question.  They are
    scrambling to fix the fix!).
    
    Other opinions?
    

    
    
    Just a note on San Francisco.  There are now *NO* UNIX sales support
    resources in a city where very large banks are doing things like
    downsizing their mainframes to UNIX/Tuxedo/Encina/DCE environments.
    
    Now, San Francisco is just 50 miles north of Silicon Valley where
    our friends HP and Sun are headquartered.
    
    Anyone remember the DVN where Gullotti talked about visiting a customer
    who bought HP?  Russ asked them why.  The response was "When I call
    your office and ask for a UNIX person, they say he's not there.  When I call
    HP, they say 'which one?'"
    
    -Ed_a_UNIX_guy who_"got_it"
    

    
    Sales is *sort of* like being a doctor.  You ALWAYS have to read and
    learn about new stuff that comes out almost daily.  
    
    Is a doctors job eaiser than a salespersons?  I think not.
    
    How about a car salesperson, or furniture?  I recently bought some
    new chairs.  The showroom was full of different "vendors" chairs.
    The sapesperson was able to answer every question I had about what
    was different between this vendors chair and that one.  He KNEW
    what he was saleing.
    
    Why do we think it is too much to ask our sales people to KNOW 
    what they are saleing?
    
    Granted, it is alot harder to sale a computer/network that a chair...
    the point is, the salesperson should KNOW what they are saleing.  When
    sales is on salary, it is just another 8 to 5 job.  If their beans
    came from commission, they would learn to sale real quick.  And it
    wouldn't take but one or two *bad* sales before that sales person
    got a bad name and then our customers wouldn't buy water from him
    in the desert.
    
    MHO
    

    re: .2
    
    Do you mean field sales support or remote sales support in the Springs?

    
    Yep.  I'd say we should revise the sales training materials to include
    PC and UNIX products and *REQUIRE* salereps to pass a test periodically 
    on basic stuff like the features and specs of our new Alpha products.
    
    Fire the bozos who don't make the grade.
    
    -Ed
    

Actually Tuesday Evening.  Some of us met last night over a brew and 
examined what had happened her in SF.  We looked at who was gone and
who was left and came to the conclusion that here they were looking
to keep application hawkers and get rid of the technologists.  Of
the people left, two are dinosaurs like myself, and I am being 
transferred to Jurassic Park.  I am going to like working for the
Government and Discrete CBU as they know they are going to need
us Dinosaurs.  I wonder how long it will be before the CBUs decide
that Sales Support and especially technical Sales Support is needed.

Larry

Skill sets of the TSFO and Transfer in SF:

TSFO 1 PCI, Novell Certified
TSFO 2 Unix
TSFO 1 Networking, strong in IBM interconnect.  CASE Partner
XFER 1 Unix to VIPS
XFER 1 DB/TP to Goverment CBU

    Remote Sales Support in Colorado Springs has dwindled down to 9 support
    specialists in the high end systems/cluster/VMS and networks queues. 
    This wasn't through TFSO.  This was through attrition.  The reqs are
    planned to be filled in the queues in Atlanta (low/midrange
    systems, licensing/services and PC/low end networking).  
                                                       
    I heard that about 40% of the Denver office had been hit Monday and
    Tuesday.
    
    Nanci

    
    regarding .10
    
    
    How about some info. on both field Sales Support and Remote.
    
    
    
    
    thanks
    deb
    

    While many organizations are downsizing the organization I work in is
    expanding in some areas. Attached is the posting in the WARIOR::JOBS
    conference related to the open req's in SASE (Systems and Support
    Engineering).
    
    Please send all inquiries to SASE::JOBS
    
    Joe
    
                <<< OASS::$7$DUA2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]JOBS.NOTE;3 >>>
                                -< Jobs in DEC >-
================================================================================
Note 4734.0  JOB: SYSTEMS ENGINEERING/SASE HAS 24 SOFTWARE OPENINGS   No replies
SASE::MORGAN                                         84 lines  14-JUN-1993 13:40
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



                 SOFTWARE....CONSULTANT AND PRINCIPAL....ENGINEERS
                 -------------------------------------------------


                                  !  LOOK HERE  !


                  ***  WE WANT THE BEST AVAILABLE ENGINEERS  ***


      SOLVE INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEMS ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS/NETWORK ENVIRONMENTS


                        LARGE SCALE CUSTOMER CONFIGURATIONS


              SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ACCOUNT TECHNICAL EXPERT SUPPORT



WE ARE EXPANDING FROM TRADITIONAL HARDWARE/SYSTEM SUSTAINING ENGINEERING INTO
COMPLEX COMPUTING SYSTEMS SOFTWARE TROUBLESHOOTING, FAULT ISOLATION, AND 
PROBLEM SOLUTION DELIVERY, DIRECTLY IN SUPPORT OF CUSTOMER APPLICATIONS 
ENVIRONMENTS.


WE ARE CENTRAL ENGINEERING'S FRONTLINE INTERFACE TO THE DIGITAL SERVICES
CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTERS, AND TO THE FIELD.  WE ARE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING/
SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT ENGINEERING.


OUR NEW COMPLEX COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT SUPPORT FOCUS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE Q1 FY94
HIRING OF [24] SOFTWARE CONSULTANT AND SOFTWARE PRINCIPAL ENGINEERS IN THE 

TECHNICAL AREAS OF:


        ULTRIX/UNIX/OSF; PATHWORKS (INCLUDING NOVELL); NETWORKING (E.G. TCP/IP, 

        BRIDGING/ROUTERS/GATEWAYS); IBM INTERCONNECT; RELATIONAL DATA BASES; 

        DISTRIBUTED CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT; DISTRIBUTED BUSINESS 

        APPLICATIONS; AND MULTI-VENDOR COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS.



            ***  WE ARE INTERVIEWING FOR THESE POSITIONS RIGHT NOW  ***
                               (STARTING JUNE 15)


              !! SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT FOR JOINING THIS NEW DIGITAL 

           SYSTEMS ENGINEERING COMPLEX COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT SUPPORT !!


                          SEND YOUR RESUME TO SASE::JOBS


                                  !  RIGHT NOW  !


                  ***  WE WANT THE BEST AVAILABLE ENGINEERS  ***


                    WE ARE LOCATED IN TEWKSBURY, MA (TWO-1/A5)


           THE JOB REQUISITION NUMBERS POSTED IN THE VTX JOBS_BOOK ARE:

H537603  H537602  H537604  H537605  G031756  G031757  G031758  H297583

G031759  G031760  H297631  H297632  G031752  G031753  G031754  G031755

G031750  G031747  G031749  G031751  H297630  G031748  H297628  H297633
    

	I heard that the Denver office cut the whole Alpha Migration
   team.  Is it true?  What does this imply about the Alpha program
   in general?

	Joe

    
    The Alpha Migration team is in the springs.  We are still here.
    
    Doug

    Its the ole political sizing game again. Problem is what are the 
    politically correct leftovers gonna do when there is no one left
    to the work that they take the credit for?

    I heard that the 60-person Alpha migration group was in Atlanta.
    
    Nanci

    well in minnesota this is it.
    
    sales support is being rolled into professional services. those that
    are left (all 4 of them) were given 24 hours to accept a new job or
    they were gone. no tfso. nothing. if they refused they would be
    terminated and it would be classified as a resignation thereby
    eliminating even the meger MN state unemployment compensation option.
    
    a hell of a way to treat people. i wonder is gulotti knows this is how
    his people are being treated? i can tell you the people are damn bitter
    and may never view digital management positively again. they will all
    be gone (MO) by years end. 
    
    who's gonna provide technical support russ? on the front lines it
    doesn't seem like anyone in corporate gives a rip. our cutomers do. A
    LOT!!

           <<< Note 2545.20 by HAAG::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>
    
>    sales support is being rolled into professional services. those that
>    are left (all 4 of them) were given 24 hours to accept a new job or
>    they were gone. no tfso. nothing. if they refused they would be
>    terminated and it would be classified as a resignation thereby
>    eliminating even the meger MN state unemployment compensation option.

	Actually, you can refuse and then you have 2 weeks to find a new
	position within the company.  If you find nothing, you are effectively
	resigning.  A bit of a gutsy move.  But I think, for some, it will
	prove to be beneficial.  Some are deciding to leave, leaving 
	positions open for others to take who want to be here.  There are 
	also a lot of jobs that are newly posted.  Most without relo, of course.

	I'm in Sales Support in a remote office (Omaha) and was fortunate
	to be offered a position as part of the new Digital Professional 
	Service Centers (PSC).  A lot of questions remain as to how our
	functions will change, how much more travel will be required, etc.

	While the future is in question about a lot of things, and while
	I have expressed my dislike about the handling of many things, I
	still feel fortunate to be selected and to still be holding a job.
	I would rather be offered a position and allow time to prove it good 
	or bad.  If it didn't work then move on at my own pace and time 
	frame.  Unless of course you were planning on leaving anyway and 
	were hoping for the package.....  I don't know the motives of those 
	in MN. 

	There is so much unknown about what will happen on July 5.  How 
	the PSC's will work, how sales will use Sales Support, how much
	travelling there will be with fewer heads now and everyone having
	a more narrow focused skill set, etc.  How will we be goaled?  And 
	how Sales will be commisioned??  That's got a few concerned!

	Come to think about it, when offered a job, the wording didn't
	say at the same grade and/or pay.  I (hope) that is assumed?

	I just pray they don't ask me to live out of a suitcase.  I've seen
	SS and Delivery folks sold for multiple months  on residencies half
	way across the country.  Only seeing their family every few weekends.
	If it comes to that, I'll be looking.  But in the meantime, 
	rolling with the almost certain changes that will be taking place
	as things start out and with the adjustments over time.....  time 
	and time again.

		--chas

    There are only 6 members of the Atlanta AMC.  Ten U.S. centers, about
    47 people all told.  Not sure of Europe & GIA numbers.

    AMC Saddle Brook N.J. here, future is in doubt.  All 3 of us don't know 
    yet if we are "saved" or not.  
    
    Beeing that we have a fairly large backlog of work and several things
    in the pipe,  the plan on how that's going to be handled is unclear. 
    Hope to know by the beginning of next week.

    New Mexico was pretty hard hit as well.  In Los Alamos they went from
    two reps to one, and from 3 sales support to 1.  In Albuquerque we
    went from 9 reps to 6 and from 6 sales support to 3.  However the
    3 of us that were left will all be doing delivery.

    re: .14
    
    	I don't know about the field, but there are only 9 members left in
    	the Remote Sales Support Group in Colo Springs, down from about 24
    	at the same time last year.  As members find other jobs, their 
    	positions are replaced in Atlanta.

    same ratio apply in Pac NW... delivery now has 1 person, and 6-8 "sales
    support" (I cannot recall the correct current term), down from about 24
    last year.
    
    OK, so the cuts are to continue... Lessee... we chopped out 2/3 of the
    grunt staff, cannot deliver anything if we were paid to, and we're
    going to continue TSFO's.... hmmmm.
    
    heck, I haveta stop taking these cynic pills...making me myopic...

    I was TFSO'd and now I'm not. My new manager told me that Gullotti had
    indicated the cuts in Sales Support were too deep and more headcount
    than was proposed was needed and restored some funding. Has anyone
    else heard anything? 

    
    I'm curious.  What do the people that used to be called Sales Support,
    that are now referred to as "delivery" deliver?
    

    When the Sales Support orgainzation joins the Professional Services
    Organization in July, the people in this new orgainzation will perform
    both functions.  So Sales Support people that have the ability to
    "deliver" (code, project management, consulting, etc) will do so.  
    
    Others who are more purely Sales Support will continue to perform sales
    support activities.  Although the days of having a whole group just
    doing sales support are gone.  People are expected to do both.  
    
    Dick

    >    Others who are more purely Sales Support will continue to perform sales
>    support activities.  Although the days of having a whole group just
>    doing sales support are gone.  People are expected to do both.  

    When I was in the Field (many years ago) there was a group called
    Software Services. These people did "delivery", sales support and
    warranty support. The priorities were the other way around back then.
    Warranty support (bug fixes, hand holding, helping with customers
    problems) was top priority and delivery the lowest. I understand that's
    all turned around now but it sounds as if the sales support and
    delivery pieces are moving back into one group.

    			Alfred

    Exactly.  The more things change the more they remain the same!!!
    
    We should have stayed in that model.
    
    Dick

    Ive been around the sales world at DEC since before we ever invented
    support. When I joined, sales people were "Sales Eningeers" (1969).
    
    Yes, once we had a single orginazation that did both delivery and
    sales. We 'fixed' that because the drive to meet revenue budget caused
    no time for sales support and we were loosing business. 
    
    Somehow we never seem to be able to support two objectives at once. We
    always swing the pendlum all the way to the other side when we 'fix' a
    problem, and soon we are back to the problem we 'fixed' last itme.
    
    Customer Business Units are not a new idea- We used to call them
    Product Lines, but they were staffed and focused by industry and we
    even 'owned' some industries. See page 5 of June 21 issue of DIGITAL
    TODAY.
    
    I do like the idea of merging delivery and support. Personally It will
    give me more experince in delivering what I propose. Lets just hope we
    can keep the management focused on having TWO objectives, selling AND
    delivering.

    The goal of having sales support people also deliver is that "cradle to
    grave" support.  They will have to deliver on what they help to sell. 
    On big SI and outsourcing deals, it makes customers *much* more
    comfortable to have the same people on the team from beginning to end. 
    From delivery perspective, it makes sense too.  I agree -- the two
    functions should never have been split.

I agree with the last few notes, with one proviso... you must not, on any
account, force consultancy sales metrics on the Professional Services folks.
That's made things an absolute disaster here. They should not differentiate
between earning money from an account team and earning money from a customer;
otherwise, you get behaviours that nuke your product presales capabilities.

You then get a spiral down...
								- Ian W.

    
    ok, next question.  What role (if any) does Digital Services, oops,
    I mean Multivendor Customer Services, play in this "delivery"?
    
    I've noticed in the past a bit of a wall between those of us in
    service delivery and other "delivery" groups, so I wonder how the
    roles and relationships may be changing in everyone's view.
    
    Thanks for your thoughts, so far,
    Dennis
    

>I agree with the last few notes, with one proviso... you must not, on any
>account, force consultancy sales metrics on the Professional Services folks.
>That's made things an absolute disaster here. They should not differentiate
>between earning money from an account team and earning money from a customer;
>otherwise, you get behaviours that nuke your product presales capabilities.


	Ian , I agree 100%, it's interesting that professional services
	excellence awards had a major criteria of "you must have a revenue goal"
	before you could even be considered!

	Heather

Like my colleague Ron Ginger from a few notes back, I've been through the
Software Services game (from '80 onwards in my case) - and like SWS folks, no
matter how they were named in the ensuing years, I was measured by revenue and
managed by managers goaled on revenue in an organization driven by revenue. 

The "interesting" thing was, supporting Sales took an ever-increasing amount of
time and effort - that is, activities based on bookings and not revenue.
Eventually I ended up in Sales Support with a booking metric - the swing of the
pendulum - where I spent time doing delivery - generating revenue.

Neither the organization nor the managers ever formally came to grips with that
chasm in metric-setting. I was deemed to be reasonably successful and my
personal formula was to ignore the metrics and keep focussed on what my
customers needed. I had the very distinct advantage of having my manager 100+
miles away while all this was going on.

Allegedly the new PSC organization will be able to support the spectrum of
pre-sales through delivery activities. I hope it will in fact and in practice
without having to play the games necessitated by metrics, administrative systems
and management schools that are stuck at the pendulum extremes. Because when the
"game" has to be played - customers get shorted - colleagues get shorted - and
the so-called "reporting" we do does not reflect what is actually being done,
and the so-called planning reflects that inaccuracy in the source reporting data.

This will not be news to sales support and SWS/EIS/whatever colleagues, but may
be useful to other readers.

So - the new PSC logic looks good on paper. The job it needs to do needs doing -
and has been done in spite of the system. The question is whether the system
will accomodate to good management of the individuals who are doing the actual
work that is required and being done. I can only hope - and influence where
possible ...

Norm

I also have been involved in both the Sales Support and Delivery 
side of Digital.  But, I still maintain that you cannot deliver
what you cannot sell.  There are people who are great at delivery,
but do not have the necessary skill set for sales support and 
the opposite is equally true.  What happened to valuing what people
are good at and taking advantage of people's unique capabilities!?!

As far as support in general it is weak to say the least, particularily
in U* support and CASE.  I am relocating to the east coast (I was a CASE 
Partner for US Desktop) from Palo Alto and the last Sales Support person working 
of CASE in the entire San Francisco Bay Area is TSFO'd as of today. (See .12 - 
There is one person in the Field Marketing Organization here in PA who is
focused on CASE, but does not generally do SALES SUPPORT.)

Reply .8 noted that we are cutting U* support in Sun and HP's backyard.  
How about all the other software houses who could use our platform and we
do not even have anyone to help with the selling?  And, if we are *LUCKY*
enough to sell something and particularily services, who is going to be left
to deliver them.  Heaven knows that mgmt isn't generally technical enough.

Any thoughts or insights into what upper management is planning as people 
walk out the door today and in the future, would be appreciated.

Trying to understand and just not getting it!!!



 

I am in the midst of a horror story I'll describe here since it is related to 
a reply a few back that mentioned the different service delivery organizations.

A major division of the account I support generated about $3M in revenue this 
year. They have 34 sites around the country that each have a MicroVAX II that 
is connected for brief periods back to headquarters via asynchronous DECnet.

This customer embarked on a project to upgrade all of the MVIIs to
MicroVAX 3100s (Model 40s and 80s). As part of this hardware sale, $89K of
hardware installation services were booked. The systems were shipped in the
December/January timeframe and have sat in boxes until now.

A couple of months later, the customer asked us to put together a proposal to 
actually perform the entire cutover from the old MicroVAX IIs to the new 3100s.
We submit a $49K proposal to do that. They buy it. They also pay $5.8K for the 
installation of some terminal servers at various satellite locations nearby, 
but in addition to the 34 VAX sites. The customer is not only upgrading their 
VAX systems, though. They are installing a full-blown LAN at each location and 
tying them into their nationwide WAN. Each site has been wired with Latticenet 
for the LAN and tied to the corporate net via Ciscos. It is our job to
integrate the VAXes, terminals and printers into these networks.

The total project comes to $143.8K. It is important to note that we are in the
midst of a separate major Systems Integration project with this customer that
will soon roll-out to all 34 sites. We are prime contractor for that effort. 

I'm a Senior Sales Support Consultant (primarily pre-sales) and I went to the
first two pilot sites to cutover the MicroVAX systems and to ascertain what 
was involved. The first was in Philadelphia and I did that with one of the
customer's headquarters technical people. The second was one of their sites in
Los Angeles and I did that alone.

It was our intention to roll out this project to the various districts to do 
the actual work and to manage the project centrally. As it turns out, each 
site seems to have a somewhat different setup (i.e., building wiring, network 
install, technical expertise, phone lines issues, cabling issues, etc.)
It would be virtually impossible (IMHO) to write a 'cookbook' so that local
Multivendor Customer Services (MCS) could do each site. Therefore another 
local person (from Professional Services) and I are traveling around the 
country performing these upgrades.

Anyway, to make a long story short... because of the way the revenue was
booked, MCS got the $89K and Professional Services got the $54.8K. Since
installing a MicroVAX 3100 and terminal servers is pretty trivial, we are
installing the hardware as part of our total application cutover. These 34
sites can only be down for a day to a day and a half, at most. 

MCS has done no work for this project, but they have $89K of revenue they 
refuse to transfer to Professional Services. We have now been told to stop all 
work on this project and to hand it off to MCS. Keep in mind that we have 
scheduled trips for the next month and a half to the remaining sites (we have 
already done more than half of them).

About a year and a half ago, this same customer contracted with us to upgrade 
VMS at each of these sites. We did a marginal job, at best. They are now 
asking us to do something substantially more complex and as the person who 
personally comitted to the customer that we would demonstrate excellence on 
this project, I can tell you that rolling this out the the local sites would 
spell disaster.

Anyway, we're going to piss this customer off to no end if we affect our 
schedule because of the brain-damaged measurement system we currently live with
in the Digital services arena. And is it sane to have no less than four
different internal organizations competing for the same business?

The Sales Exec and I are livid about this whole thing. I accept full 
responsibility for what we sold the customer and the fact that due to the
customer's communication/networking problems, we're dealing with more than we
bargained for. However, the local Professional Service organization still
believes we can deliver excellence AND make a profit on this (even with all
the travel expenses), if we have the entire $143.8K to deal with. 

We have a con-call scheduled for tomorrow  with management from MCS, PS and
Sales to try to resolve this. This part of the customer's company is a 
showcase for partnership with Digital. This delivery effort is not a 
loss-leader and it is a real opportunity for us to show how excellent our 
service can be. I can't believe there are those in this company willing to 
risk the great relationship we've built with this $3M customer for a piddly
$89K!

Regards,

Jim

    re: .39
    
    I, too, have been caught in similar situations where internal Digital
    groups have fought over who gets a slice of the revenue and who has
    to actually do the work. It's an ugly side of Digital management and
    how nobody is really held responsible for customer satisfaction.
    
    The worst thing about situations like these is that the customer
    usually gets dragged into the middle of the fight, and gets to 
    witness first-hand many of our internal battles. Even if we do 
    end up meeting our technical deliverables, our credibility is
    shot, and follow-on business is a lost cause.
    
    To add insult to injury, everybody even peripherally involved will
    take credit for the revenue, and blithely forecast lots of follow-
    on business, secure in the knowledge that customers can't remember
    getting screwed for more than a few weeks, and that the account team
    will take the customer out to lunch and smooth things over, and ...
    
    Yours in sympathy,
    
    Geoff

    Jim, you discovered two undeniable truths about Digital:

    Customer satisfaction is a hostage to be bargained with, not a goal
    that all strive to attain.

    Recognition of actual work performed has only the most remote chance of
    being made accurately.  Recognition itself is driven by artifacts of
    obsolete computer-based systems reflecting obsolete organizational
    structures for a customer business environment that, assuming it ever
    existed, certainly doesn't exist now.

    
    re: .39
    
    Jim, 
    
    I would like to know why MCS cannot deliver the services you
    mention.  My current interest is in addressing the issue in
    my office, in the hopes that we can improve our organization
    and save a few jobs in the process.
    
    Fell free to contact me offline if you wish.  I've always been
    puzzled, when I hear these horror stories and would love to know
    why they occur.
    
    Thank you,
    Dennis
    MCS in DWO
    

	re .40:

>    secure in the knowledge that customers can't remember
>    getting screwed for more than a few weeks, and that the account team
>    will take the customer out to lunch and smooth things over, and ...

	"It ain't what you don't know that does the damage, it's what
	you know that ain't so".

	This particular piece of "knowledge" is a sure road to ruin.

	/Tom

    Would somebody care to explain to me, a mere PEON, why Professional
    Services is getting ANY revenue. I was under the obviously mistaken
    impression that the only entities in this company with P&L
    responsibility were the CBUs of which MCS is one. Should ALL the
    revenue be booked to MCS? Shouldn't MCS then be using the services of
    Professional Services to deliver the goods if it needs to? Given that
    Professional Services is not a P&L center shouldn't Professional
    Services just be looked at as an expense center where its managers
    should be goaled on maximum utilization and driving the cost of their
    services to people like MCS down to the lowest level possible. In other
    words shouldn't Professional Services just be trying to cover its
    actual costs and not be trying to show a profit as you seem to think
    they should be.
    
    But then again maybe I'm totally confused and this restructuring into
    CBUs is just a figment of Bob Palmer's imagination and that in reality
    we have both CBUs and Functions trying to show P&L and arguing over it
    with each other. God help this company because it seems noone else is
    capable of it.
    
    Dave

    I, too, would be interested to know more about why MCS could
    not handle this.
    
    The flip side of this senerio is when we in MCS receive a call to
    install an unusual configuration and one or more of the following
    has happened:
    
    1) No configuration information is available. This is a real
       problem when it is an SI project. We arrive on-site to find
       a mixed bag of hardware and no information on how it is to
       be set up.
    
    2) Sales quoted to project with no installation paid for but told
       the customer it was. Then Sales whines and screams until MCS
       management does it for free. This used to happen ALOT.
    
    3) The installation was improperly configured and/or parts and
       pieces weren't ordered. MCS then must P1 order the required parts
       and hope someone will pay for them.
    
    I don't know why MCS management wants the 89K. But I DO know that 
    we (MCS) as a whole are capable of impressive work if we have the
    proper information and just a little support.
    
    Theo Bellamy
    MCS Engineer
    Charlotte, NC
    

    The answer is too obvious to mention, but I will anyway.

    Digital organizationally has moved from a imperfect teamwork
    organization to a 'zero-sum game' organization.  For the fixed number
    of customer dollars out there, one needs to use every bureaucratic
    ruse, manipulation, and maneuver of the obsolete computer-based systems
    that track allocation of revenue.

    Customer satisfaction in the real world takes a back seat to the
    virtual reality of what numbers can be coaxed out of the month- and
    quarter-end reports.  The manipulation of these numbers is the highest
    priority of managers without direct customer contact.
    
    Now if only we could apply this agression and competitiveness against
    Sun, HP, and IBM rather than ourselves, think what would happen!

   But arn't we saying here that the information isn't available, so we might
   as well use the people who are there to do the tailored work, rather than
   send one lot of people out to look, and another set of people out to do?

	Heather

    Along the lines of old computer systems, and deals made in back rooms
    years ago, notice what happens to software update revenue. Software
    engineering does all the work of making an update, but all MDDS revenue
    goes to service. Enigneering gets nothing.
    
    So some whizz kid with a spread sheet decides software enigneering isnt
    as profitable as other software companies, and we start laying off
    software engineers. Meanwhile some service group runs around telling the
    world how service is one of the most important revenue producers in the
    company. Sure, when the accounting system gives you zero charge for
    producing the product, you can show a nice profit for selling it.
    
    In a similar vein, note the decisions that are made believing channels
    like DECdirect have no sales support costs. There are actually managers
    making major decisions for our future, that believe there is no cost of
    sales support for channels. The fact that we have no mechanism to
    charge time to either DECdirect or distributors, makes people belive we
    dont spend time supporting them.
    
    Its bad enough that our internal accounting system is full of lies and
    old deals, but worse that people make decisons based on this bogus
    'data'.

    re. last dozen or so. see note 1797.0 in this file. i stand by every
    word. in fact, i believe it's getting worse as we go along. we seem to
    argue constantly about who will get credit for what. i see it every
    week. and we seem to count everything at least 3 or 4 times. it's a
    ridiculous system totally out of control.

>The total project comes to $143.8K. 
>
>Anyway, to make a long story short... because of the way the revenue was
>booked, MCS got the $89K and Professional Services got the $54.8K. Since
>
>MCS has done no work for this project, but they have $89K of revenue they 
>refuse to transfer to Professional Services. We have now been told to stop all 
>
>However, the local Professional Service organization still
>believes we can deliver excellence AND make a profit on this (even with all
>the travel expenses), if we have the entire $143.8K to deal with. 

Maybe it's just me. But it seems there is plenty of stupidity on both sides
of this one. Or as was stated earlier, more likely it is the measurements.

If MCS is not involved, maybe they shouldn't get the revenue. Even if they
do, someone in PS should be shot for stopping work until the "arguement"
is settled.

Am I the only one who would look at this as 143.8K for Digital? Get the job
done and, if necessary, argue about who gets credit after.

							Mark

Re: .50

	the only problem with this perfectly reasonable, rational, and common
sense solution is that the organization that lets go of the revenue for the
good of the customer and Digital will be staring down the TFSO barrel come next
round.

Re: .44

	You've hit the nail square on the head. Services is NOT a business unit,
yet everytime someone asks me, a COST CENTER manager in Services, about our
contribution it's a two part question - 1) have you netted your expense budget
to zero, and 2) How much revenue did your activities generate! 

-Terry

Well, some negotiations behind the scenes has brought about a compromise 
whereby MCS will transfer some funds to PS so that we may continue the effort 
for this customer. When I was told, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 
This issue has been around for over a month and it is the last thing we need 
to deal with in Q4.

I have received some mail off-line in addition to the replies posted here and 
I understand that there are very competent people out there in MCS. My problem 
was two-fold:

	- The customer contracted for us to upgrade VMS at these sites a year 
          and a half ago and we did a marginal job.

	- There is little consistency between the expertise and competence at
          each Digital site and we didn't want to risk this project with
          unknown resources.

	- I've been dealing with this customer for three years and have a good 
          feel for their business and have an excellent working relationship
          with their technical people and management. This effort is only 
          going to enhance our existing partnership and be a key factor in 
          leveraging another $3M in FY94. A poor showing on this project would 
          have had quite the opposite effect.

I still think our problem lies with the overlap of charters within the
services organization and the measurement system they (and we) currently live
with (is it good for me vs. is it good for Digital?). 

Regards,

Jim

    >       <<< Note 2545.49 by HAAG::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>

    >re. last dozen or so. see note 1797.0 in this file. i stand by every
    >word. in fact, i believe it's getting worse as we go along. we seem to
    >argue constantly about who will get credit for what. i see it every
    >week. and we seem to count everything at least 3 or 4 times. it's a
    >ridiculous system totally out of control.
    
    Have you heard any of the CBU fighting over accounts? One would think
    it was pretty clear but we have lots of managers now out dividing up
    the accounts. We have a customer that provides home health care. The
    Process Industries claims its a pharmaceutical customer because they
    deliver drugs to the patients.
    
    Any other old timers out there that remember the 'product line
    shopping' in the old days?
    
    

    
    Jim,
    
    I've heard of other groups forming "virtual teams" of individuals,
    located across the globe that "meet" to plan to deliver services,
    etc.  Perhaps what is needed, is a mechanism to form teams, without
    concern for locale, of talented and compentent individuals to 
    deliver services on projects that PS & SI develop.  I thought that
    this concept was one of the things that Digital touts as a 
    differentiator.  Surely, this would enable the delivery of services
    in a cost-effective and efficient manner?
    
    Dennis
    

Note 2545.53 by DEMOAX::GINGER
    
    >Have you heard any of the CBU fighting over accounts? 
    
    yup. but break it down to individual sales reps and its unbeliveably
    wild. BTW, we don't fight over "accounts", we fight over monies.
    Monies, real or "otherwise" make all the difference. till that
    changes don't expect much in the way of "competitive enthusiasism".
    
    
    

    Indeed, I recall, a california based Sales Rep, (Who closed about
    $15M/year but was just let go) who wanted to visit a major prospect
    that was 100 yards from the local DEC office. He was told not to,
    because this account was to be serviced by a CBU based in the east.
    They never turned up, the account went elsewhere, the sales rep has
    been sacked, and someone else has the business, while we try to work
    out how to get rid of more people.
    
    q
    

    re .56
    
    Was that Jerry Beeler?
    
    		-John Bishop

    re: .57
    
    Yep

    
    
    Jerry was so p'd off he couldn't see straight.
    
    
    
    Mike

    Well, maybe - but he might have had some reason to...

    Jerry's gone?  What is happening to this company??
    
    Geoff
    

    We are cutting ourselves for cuttings sake. Not to improve
    revenue/employee figures, or get rid of dead wood, or anything like
    that.
    
    About five years ago, I made a comment to several people that the
    Region in which I work, had such a thin cross section of specialists,
    that by taking out 200 people from the 1500 person region, who held key
    expertise, one could literally shutdown the rest of the operation.
    Well, about half of those people have gone, From Sales reps, who could
    sign $20M/year and not even leave the office, to field software bods,
    who had OS/internals expertise up the wazoo, (Now asking and getting
    $1K+/day), and so on... And we are running real thin on resources. And
    there is business out there, pleading with us to sell them solutions...
    
    argh
    
    q
    

    
    He had much reason to, Alain.
    
    
    
    
    Mike

re: .61
>    Jerry's gone?  What is happening to this company??

Reminds me of another question, related ... where's Nassar?  He's been awfully
quiet here.  Has he joined Jerry?

    Nassar is still in ELF - so here's hoping!
    
    -s
    

Wait til the new sales compensation plan comes out. Then people will really 
be scrimping for every penny from those anitquated accounting systems. 

I too work on the front lines and cannot believe the number of people who call
our account team to ask for the DEC number of orders so that they can receive
credit. These are people who had nothing to do with winning the business. They
are simply in positions with a performance measurement based purley on numbers,
not actual work performed or contribution.

As I said, just wait, it WILL get worse.

    re: .64
    
    Nasser is still among us; we exchanged VAXmail today.  I let him know
    he was missed...
    
    /dlw