Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

421.0. "Gartner Group on Selling DEC - by DEC" by CHEVIE::FITZGIBBON (Joe Fitzgibbon, Valbonne EIC) Mon Jul 06 1992 15:34

<MANY HEADERS DELETED>

From:	AKOCOA::GLANTZ       "My byte's longer than your byte" 30-JUN-1992 
16:36:22.64
To:	MR4DEC::HAGER, HANNAH::LANDAU
CC:	
Subj:	GARTNER ON DEC REORG

DEC's Reorganization: The Persistent Blind Spot                    
  
Author: Melling, W.                    Source   : GG: Small Computer Systems
                                       Type     : Research Service
                                       Date     : 29-MAY-92
                                      



Failure to Communicate Strategic and Product Messages to Sales Force

Key Issues:

- What is DEC's long-term business strategy?
- Can DEC attune itself to the needs of a large user organization?

When Gartner Group analysts talk to DEC engineers, we come away with a
positive impression -- both of the current product set and of future product
strategies. Then we talk to our clients -- and to front-line DEC sales reps --
and conclude that DEC is discarding its best sales messages somewhere between
the engineer and the sales rep. In a market where IBM, HP and Unisys are
making money, and at a time when DEC's products are more competitive than
ever, DEC's declining product sales clearly signal that the failure to
communicate strategic and product messages is costing the company dearly.

Where is the blockage? It starts with a culture that believes that selling is
inherently embarrassing, that sees needs creation as "selling people things
they don't need," and that can say with a straight face that a good technical
handbook will sell a good product. The cultural attitude is driven home by
high symbolism -- no one whose character has been "stained" by selling has
ever been asked to manage the DEC sales function.

The cultural fall-out is evident in communications to the sales force. Heavily
focused on "technofactoids" about product, DEC's sales literature and sales
training presentations skim over broad trends, ignore "Why was it necessary to
build this product?", treat competitive analysis as a feature list comparison
and rarely offer long-term user strategies. An awful example is Sales Update,
DEC's primary journal used internally for product announcements, which is
notable for banal production values, uneven writing skill, and inconsistent
format. (It is instructive to note that in a company which is fanatic about
architecture, the primary vehicle for communicating with the sales force is
visibly not "architected.") Sales Update is so full of detail, and so empty of
perspective, that most sales reps are overwhelmed by it, and many don't even
try to read it seriously. The results are predictable. DEC has, for example, a
leadership position in three-level client/server software for fault-tolerant
OLTP, with a string of recent competitive wins. We recently encountered
approximately 30 DEC sales reps in eight cities who did not know of the trend,
or recognize the name of the software product involved. There is little point
in engineering leadership technology if your sales reps don't know about it.



Technological Advantage in Jeopardy

o  Needs creation -- DEC has a window of advantage in both repository and
object brokering. However, most users have no idea that they need a repository
or an object broker. Unless the DEC sales force can first do needs creation
and then sell selection criteria, there is little point describing the
features of CDD/Repository or of ACA -- but describing features is what the
DEC sales force is equipped to do.

o  Strategic leadership -- Multivendor "disintegration" is an almost universal
problem, and in Network Application Support (NAS), DEC has one of the
industries better solutions. Strategically, what CIOs want to understand is
why the job of multivendor integration can't be done by "open systems," or by
Oracle -- in short, why NAS is necessary. Then they want to know where they'll
be in five years if they use NAS today. NAS sales training goes straight to
the features of today's product. The result is that too few DEC sales reps can
articulate NAS strategy; and of the DEC customers we talk with, too few have
had a coherent NAS presentation from DEC.

o  Philosophical credibility -- DEC's VMS and Unix systems are both as "open"
as any systems on the market. Selling them, however, requires dealing with the
subtle (but accurate) premise that "open" does not equate to "Unix," but
rather describes compliance to standards which transcend the operating system.
To sell that idea, you must first establish your sincere enthusiasm for open
systems. DEC has not worked effectively to achieve a religious conversion to
"open" in its sales force, with the result that many customers cross DEC off
the bid list on the grounds that "we can't get the sales rep to talk seriously
about open systems."



Won't the New Organization Fix This?

We are pessimistic. As a DEC sales executive said to us at DECworld, "65
percent of fixing a problem is recognizing you have it, and admitting it. Only
35 percent is actually doing the fix." We believe that DEC senior managers do
not understand the seriousness of this issue (0.7 probability). We are
convinced that they are not ready to admit it except as lip service. We are
forced to conclude that DEC will let the window close on much of its current
technological advantage without turning it into market share (0.8 probability
through 1994).