Conference 7.286::digital

Re: .0   Thank you.

Mr. Palmer, when you compare our Sales force with the Sales force of our 
competitors, please remember to include all of the support systems, order 
processing systems, quoting system, accounting systems, tracking systems,
etc., in your comparison.

I think you'll find the problem very quickly, and its not the people.

Bob

    It's not fair to compare the Digital yield/employee with other
    companies because the superstructure we support is twice as large as
    other companies. Therefore our yields are half of other companies.

re: .3

Fair has nothing to do with it... we are speaking about basic efficiency
here.

Could an auto maker justify poor sales of an overpriced product because
'we have a lot of superstructure'?

Lee

    re .4
    
    Perhaps not, but the automakers have gotten rid of the 'superstructure'
    something we've been unwilling to do....

Also, 

a lot of the superstructure is not counted as part of the ship. A car 
dealer is not counted as an employee on the Ford books, but certainly is 
responsible for contributing to the Ford bottom line.

With Apple, the majority of sales are by reseller. A lot of the accounting 
around sales and support is by the reseller. This acts to increase the 
revenue/per employee since the costly front-end component of the sale is 
not included in the Apple figures. We dont count the Sears guy flogging 
PS/1s as an emplyee of IBM, do we?

Yes, we have resellers, but our primary selling model is largely direct. 
The attendant costs of having this "in-house" goes to the bottom line. If 
Wall Street continues to focus on revenue/employee as a metric, then the 
inevitable is that we will seek to stop calling many of our salesforce 
and support structure part of Digital and seek to move them to other 
organisations.

The revenue per employee figure is an indicator of some structural anomoly.
That does not mean that it is necessarily an indicator that the level of 
support or cost of sales effort is, in itself, too high. To do that you 
would have to look at the cost of sale of a Digital salesperson against the 
cost of sale of the same apple reseller, including the costs of Apple 
behind them as well. Only then can you get some realistic idea of where we 
fall apart. Certainly, striving to reduce revenue/employee by cutting the 
number of employees and NOT lloking at the structural model you are using 
is crazy.

I think we have real problems. I believe the one-on-one approach our 
salesforce is made to carry out is not cost effective. Let us have some 
tailored local PRODUCT advertising on television and in the local papers (I 
work in a national capital city). Linkworks, Sable, the enterprise mail 
products and OSF/1 would be a good start. To cover the amount of people 
some closely targeted ads in our local city paper's Monday computer section 
(most people in this town invloved in Computers read it) would reach we 
would need 3 times the salesforce doing one-on-ones, if they can even get 
in the door of some places cold. For God's sake, we have a local fishing 
store that gets on the TV and says "We sell X, Y, Z...and we know our 
fish". They have doubled their size in the last year! The local Hi-fi store 
can do it, why cant a local branch of a major multi-national turning over 
millions a year get the capacity to target its local market?

The result of the 3 mega announcements has been exactly zero lines in the 
paper here to date. A single announcement about a HP printer the other day 
got a quarter of a page. We need to get closer to the local media. If 
Boston has a problem with the Globe,give someone the wherewithal fix it. If
we have a problem, give us the capability to correct it.

Some of the guys are so busy trying to cut quotes via the arcane quoting 
systems for their installed base they dont have time to prospect or to work 
on strategic selling tactics. When they are not doing that, they are often 
chasing up mis-ships. The actual contact time with customers is probably 
pretty low. The amount of time they spend crystal ball gazing (called 
forecasting in Digital parlance) is too high. These systems have to be 
fixed, and quick.

The sales force is good, but they are pressed to meet their account focus 
let alone seek out bold new worlds where quarterly announcement fear to go.
We do need to look at the business model we act under. We also need to look 
at the business models we deal with third parties under.

We need to reach new audiences cost effectively. The direct salesforce will 
not cover the potential customers we need to reach alone. Our third parties 
are finding it a cheaper and easier sell in my town to push Microsoft 
product even when we have the goods on them. For instance, its easier to 
sell Microsoft mail on the promise of enterprise mail from them than it is 
to articulate our Mailbus 400 products, which are here today. 

A salutary lesson from the rainbow days and Computerland is that if you 
dont provide good incentive by establishing marketing visibility and higher 
profit per sale for the reseller over the other products they carry, then 
dont expect to be more than 'bait-n-switch' fodder. Customer will come in 
to look at the big range and eventually be sold the one that delivers the 
highest margin against the least amount of work to the reseller. We do our 
channels considerable disservice by not clearly articulating our strengths 
to the marketplace. We push their cost of sales up as well. The question 
then becomes, "why should I give Digital as much on a sale as one of my 
other vendors when your kit is so much harder to sell?". "Each time someone 
comes in I have to explain who you are and why we stock your goods"
Digital will, therefore, continue to lose because even our reseller costs 
will be too high. We will have merely transferred the sewage into a 
different pipe so that the beach looks cleaner.

I want to say I have the utmost respect for the majority of the sales 
people I work with. Lets get the crap out of their way (in an intelligent 
fashion) and start looking at the real costs of doing business so a 
sensible assessment can be made.



Regards,
John

    re: .-1, .-2
    
    >>> I have heard we have 10 times more manager than Hewlett Packard.
    >>>       Please, tell me it is not true.
    
    	of course it isn't true.  the rumor is simply that we have 10 times
    more managers than we need.

    Thanks for .0. I have been in Computer sales for 17 years and with 3 
    different computer companies. I found that in every company when
    sales were down because products were not competative, or marketing
    was not done properly or for whatever the case, the sales people get
    a lot of the blame. I guess it comes with the territory.
    
    You watch, as soon a Digital gets its act together, which will be soon, 
    and our products are selling like crazy, the sales force will be herald
    as the best in the industry. Speaking from experience I have seen it
    happen in other companies. It even happened at Digital. Remember back
    in 1986, the VAX was hot and our sales reps were praised as being the 
    best, even Ken Olson's plan of not paying commisions was said to be
    great.    Our time is coming .....
    
    Also, comparing our sales force to others, overall it is much much 
    better. The hard part about selling at Digital is all the
    administrative activities that hinder sales productivity. If you are
    not in sales you would be amazed at what a sales person has to put up
    with inside of Digital throughout the sales process and even after the
    sale is complete.  

    10 times as many managers.
    Manager implies someone who manages.
    
    
    You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    A carrot instead of a stick will however work on occaision.
    How about it?

>    You watch, as soon a Digital gets its act together, which will be soon,
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>    and our products are selling like crazy, the sales force will be herald
>    as the best in the industry. Speaking from experience I have seen it

There is an optimistic view. Please expand on that... what do you see in
the future that will get us out of this mind-numbing "reorg-TFSO-reorg-
TFSO-" loop...

Thanks-

Lee

    My name is Michael London and I am part of the Knowledge Aquifer Group.
    
    The K.A. is going to give Digital employees, customers and partners the
    exact information they need at their finger-tips to do their job.
    
    My job is to determine the information needs of sales.
    
    I know about a lot of the problems, but if sales people would like to
    talk to me about something specific or be interviewed for the analysis-
    Please give me a call.
    
    Selling comes first so I understand if no one replies.
    
    Give me a call at DTN:223-0689.
    
    
    Michael

    >    exact information they need at their finger-tips to do their job.
    
    pretty lofty goals...  isn't this what we have today with STARS/TIMA?

    >pretty lofty goals...  isn't this what we have today with STARS/TIMA?
    
    I'm in sales. How do I access STARS/TIMA?

>    I'm in sales. How do I access STARS/TIMA?

    That's a trick question, right? ;-) TIMA is an MCS tool and generally
    it seems to be difficult for people not in MCS to get TIMA accounts
    (it of course depends on the people managing the TIMA hub closest to
    you).
    
    Anyway, TINCUP::TIMA discusses it.
    
    ...petri

    N.B. TIMA stands for Technical Information Management Architecture,
         and in essence is an interface to product information & problem/
         solution article databases, patches, source listings, documentation,
         etc.
         

    Yes, it was a trick question. I think that it's great that someone is
    going to focus on doing something to help sales find the information
    they need when they need it. STARS/TIMA is good and I have been trying
    to sell consulting to my customer for some time using it as the core.

    there is a growing perception in this industry that our sales force is
    lazy, fat, and needs to be hacked up beyond belief. the "gods" of wall
    street say this and all bow in agreement. the "wizards" of the national
    press corps say its so. so it must be. the all knowing "industry
    consultants" say it's our only way to profitability. so obviously we
    need to hack hundreds, maybe even thousands, of folks in sales.
    
    so it WILL happen. and we'll further spiral into despair.
    
    why? easy. the first to go will be those of us at the bottom of the org
    chart. those that are on the streets every day selling DEC and our
    products and services. it no longer matters if you have a $5 million
    sale pending. DEC cannot afford these fat, unproductive sales folks.
    they must be purged. 
    
    and now we have senior management of this company agreeing with the
    press that a purge is necessary. you see it in quotes in national
    magazines pretty regularly these days. BP said today that restructuring
    will be significant and soon.
    
    here is a test of your faith. very shortly DEC management will execute
    another round of restructuring. that means lots of layoffs. if the
    fields sales force is hacked bigtime, how many of you will rush out and
    buy beaucoup DEC stock in support of that action as a necessary step to
    profitability???
    
    i work with customers EVERY day. they are holding their breath awaiting
    DECs next move. for lot of them it will decide whether they write us
    off for good. 
    
    scary is the only word that comes to mind. i am not scared of losing my
    job. i am scared for dec's survival. 

I'm not aware of any perception that the sales force is lazy or fat.
Bob Palmer recently acknowledged we can't cut the sales force any
further without cutting revenue.

The problem is that the computer industry has shifted and continues to
move toward lower cost low margin commodity products which cannot sustain
a large direct sales force.  If we fail to adapt, we will become extinct.

The sales force is not to blame.  If anything, they've been doing an
admirable job of swimming upstream giving us time to respond.
But the current keeps getting faster.

We need creative solutions that tap the accumulated skill and experience
of our sales force while moving to a multi-tier distribution structure.
[The change was too much for Ed Lucente to manage]

- Peter

    
    One distinction is important here :

    "sales force" 	- as described by WSJ and customer comment - this is the
    			sum of Digitals interactions with customers .

    "sales force" 	- as we mean it internally , the sales professions.

    A customer does not care why sales guy can give precise delivery date
    or why the date changes, so goes for all other frustrations with DEC.

    When WSJ says bad things about sales, they rather mean Digitals
    customer relations/handling in general.

    We have to get our act together in all areas before "sales" review will
    improve. It's you and me as well ....

	
	My hats off to all of you in your "realistic" assessment
	about our sales people. I agree that they are much better	
	and less deserving of all the "blame" for the ills of this
	company. I'm in sales support, its nice to hear someone outside
	the sales organization, say good things about sales.


	Rick C. "The Emporer Doesn't Have New Clothes"

    
                                           Date:  May 4, 1994
                                           From:  David Gagne
                                                  Kirt Gillum
                                           Dept:  OpenVMS AXP Development

Subject:  Token Ring support in OpenVMS AXP V6.1

I am writing this note to let you know about an important feature that has
been added to the EPSILON (V6.1) release of OpenVMS AXP.  I will post this
information in various notes conferences in hopes that sales people will
know about the possible sales that can be made - and maybe make some sales
to NEW customers for OpenVMS and Digital.

What is important about this addition is that it opens the door to a NEW set
of possible OpenVMS customers.  I see no other change made to OpenVMS that
does this to the extent of Token Ring support.

Excluding NAC, there has NOT been a lot of push to get Token Ring supported
on OpenVMS, despite the fact that supporting Token Ring (from my stab in
the dark) more than triples the number of customers that we can competitively
sell OpenVMS AXP PC servers to.  That is a conservative number; it may
increase the number of PC customers by a factor of five.  There are more PCs
sitting on Token Ring only networks than any other type of network.  Previous
to having Token Ring support, you could only sell an OpenVMS solution to PC
customers that had an Ethernet or FDDI.  To sell to a Token Ring only
customer, you had to also sell them an Ethernet to Token Ring Bridge/Router;
which would add about 20 to 30 thousand additional dollars to the sale.
Adding that much to the price of a OpenVMS server solution meant NO SALE.

Since OpenVMS AXP now has Token Ring support and since Pathworks supports our
Token Ring drivers, with a small amount of effort, OpenVMS can be easily sold
to just about any PC-only customer looking for a PC server.  I would expect
that such sales would be VERY easy to make based on price/performance/expansion
of AXP + OpenVMS + Pathworks.

And Pathworks is not the ONLY product using the OpenVMS Token Ring drivers
that opens new markets to OpenVMS.  The four TCP/IP vendors for OpenVMS all
support Token Ring.   Some of these vendors also offer Netware servers
(TCPware from Process and Multiware from TGV).  This allows an OpenVMS node
to be a Novell Network server on a Token Ring LAN.  Netware is another
network - like TCP/IP and DECnet.  Previous to having Token Ring support
in OpenVMS, it was close to impossible to sell OpenVMS as a solution to a
customer that had a Token Ring only LAN.  As mentioned previously, adding
Token Ring support to OpenVMS opens this entire NEW market to OpenVMS.

A number I heard over a year ago was that there are over 90 million PCs.
Most of these that are on a network are on Token Ring only networks.  Before
having Token Ring support, it was difficult/impossible to sell OpenVMS as a
server solution to any of these customers; no matter what they were using
for a network (TCP/IP, DECnet, Netware).  Now we can sell to all of them!