Conference 7.286::digital

You might want to add the near 100 of us that are working on the tours
and presentations that will be given. Rumor I heard was that Janet
Wallace kept trying to cut the numbers of folks coming but but got
so much flak she caved. I guess they like Colorado in the summer as
much as we do. Personally, we see it as a great opportunity to let
the sales VIPs understand what they are selling. That has been a big
problem for the center. Once the customer has the wrong expectation of
what they are buying they are never happy with us. liesl

   Oh, this is nothing.  MCS does this *all the time*.

   Yes, as the company continues to lose money hand over fist, MCS again and
   again holds meetings wherein VPs and top level managers get to fly around
   the country for no real reason (yet another reorg?  Do they really have to
   be present for that?  How many is that this year?)

   How many years ago was it that the entire MCS org went to the San Diego
   Zoo?

   Oh, to be a manager in MCS...

   -- Sam

    I don't geddit. I thought there was an embargo/freeze on ALL non
    revenue generating travel ? I made a proposal 3 months ago for $7000
    dollars of equipment to train new people and test new software/prepare
    demos for customers. 8 months ago we had a demo/training for customers
    in Europe where we were crying out for this. I was told this kind of
    thing is frozen. So there is going to be a party in Colorado in preference
    to doing work to generate revenue, cut costs, improve quality? I vote
    they cancel it and hold local workshops and phone conferences for a few
    days, while STILL in their offices working. 
    
    Please keep us posted here on the costs of this jaunt...
    
    Kevin

    
    	ARGH!!
    
    	$7000 dollars is REDUNDANT.  Stop doing that!!
    
    	Thank you.  8^)
    

    >>$7000 dollars is REDUNDANT.  Stop doing that!!
    
    hoho, very good joke. Alright, I'll spend my time waitng for calls
    noting okay ?

Re freeze on all non-revenue travel,
You're right.  Takes a VP signature to approve it.
Guess what they've got LOTS of lined up for the event...

    I don't know who all is going to CO. I know our District manager is.
    She is responsible for P&L of a $125 million (+/-) business entity
    which has just been vastly reconfigured, both in geography and in
    business structure. If she can get ANY information out there that will
    help us pull off the hat trick the corporation expects from us over the
    next quater, then I'm all for it. The expense of her going is backgound
    noise in the overall scheme of things.

    re: .8
    
    GO GETT'EM THEO.....
    
    You're absolutely right.....  only I don't know that I'd call it a hat
    trick.... Can't say what I'd call it here.
    
    Toodles.....JPs
    

    >>> Do you expect that business meetings will stop because people
        are being layed off??
    
    No, I expect it because the company announced a worldwide freeze on
    this sort of thing until the end of Q1. And by the way, I think it
    works. In the last few months I have noticed that various terribly
    important meetings have not happened and that the business gets done
    anyway. So have we got a freeze on it or haven't we ? My outrage comes
    from having had to present Digital products to partners and customers
    in very unfavorable circumstances and not being able to do something
    about it.  The issues is, do we have a credible cost control policy or
    not. It sounds like those who should be controlling costs and
    implementing the freeze which was announced are ignoring it. The goats
    are in the garden eating the vegetables again, and it is nothing new.
    In the days when Digital had seven billion dollars in cash the then
    European VP Mr Falotti used to hold such parties and have videos made
    of himself explaining there is a lot you can do with seven billion
    dollars. They even invited a disgraced politician who had had to resign
    because he fiddled expenses and paid him some 30 thousand dollars for
    his 90 minute after dinner speech... 
    
    So if you are telling me the freeze is over and urgently needed
    equipment can be purchased, I'll drop my outrage and join the party, 
    but that is not the case, is it ? Q1 has 6 weeks to go. And if Q1 is
    bad, we can have another little crisis can we ?
    
    This meeting is NON_REVENUE_GENERATING so it is out, right. That is the
    policy. Full stop. Or am I missing something ?
    
    Kevin
                              

    
    
    Yes, the trip is costing $$$.  However, if a visit to COS helps a group
    of MCS decision makers to better understand this part of the business,
    then GREAT! 
    
    I work at the CSC.  I have been on loan to another organization over 
    the past several months on a revenue project.  And having been out 
    and around, I have found that various parts of Digital do not have 
    any idea what other parts do.  
    
    People are missing opportunities for available resources they
    don't know exist.  Services are not being sold because folks don't
    know they are available. 
    
    There have been other discussions in this file where folks have 
    expressed concern that we are not aware of what other organizations
    are doing.  Here is an honorable attempt of one group trying to be
    more informed about this particular business.
    
    Mary Jo 

    Greetings all,
    
    Sorry to sound like a broken record but.... Is there any chance that
    all of those suits could stick there head in the place where calls are
    recieved. All I ever get from customers is constant whining about the
    hold times to get a called logged. 
    
    Fred

    There have been lots of complaints lately about CSC being understaffed
    and how someone should "take a look". Well, I guess (hope) someone
    listened.
    
    re: timing. Well, they could have waited for the ski season?!?
    

    This thread sounds sooo familar to the San Diego meeting about a year
    and half ago.Half the folks were outraged and half were supported of 
    that meeting hoping some good,constructed vision and leadership would 
    arise from it.Folks,we are still waiting on results from that debacle.
    I know we had Change Forums (yippee!!),more layoffs,no raises,very poor
    morale....Yeah, we need another meeting.

re .18

Well, you've told us twice now that we don't know enough about the meeting 
to judge it. Fine. Why not share share your wisdom and insight with us? 
Perhaps if we knew as much as you seem to imply you know, we could be more 
understanding.

tim m.

    re .21
    
    Chris,
    
    What's your point?  We're trying to discuss if this meeting is prudent,
    that's all.  If you care to tell us your thoughts AGAIN, please do!
    
    Lighten up!!

    The balance of evidence so far is that no revenue will be generated,
    there are no customers coming, from what we read. But, as I asked
    before, am I missing something ? I took the basenote at face-value,
    which certaily implies the meeting won't generate revenue. The
    base-noter should come up with evidence.
    
    But anyway, what happened at San Diego Zoo? I had this dream last
    night: a group of suits accidently walked into the monkey house at
    feeding time and a group of monkeys slipped out with them and have been
    on the payroll ever since. It was a dream wasn't it... :-) 
    
    Kevin

>    Did I imply that I know anything about this meeting?  I don't.  Nor

(snip)
    
>    Hey, I *DO* know something about this meeting!!  .....

(snip)    

>    So, without knowing what the meeting is about, who is going and why,
    

Schizophrenia at it's finest... No reason to attempt to continue this 
discussion...

tim m.

The original .0 was deleted by the author, so I deleted the replies to it.
I see the discussion restarted, which is fine.

				Steve

I'm here. I'm giving a demo. I know what the meeting is about. It is
the MCS fiscal 97 kickoff meeying. It is to explain the new organization
of profit and loss business units. It is a pep rally and it is to make
sure the folks at the top understand the CSC.

Parts of the tours include all the pieces of call handling from the inital
call recieved to the MOD room for escalations. They will have call pairing
with some tour stops. We are showing them all our current tools. They will
learn how we are funded which is making a big change this year. They will
learn how this center functions and what it needs from them. Any more
questions? liesl

    >I, as the author deleted the original base note because I wanted to 
    >stimulate discussion in a more positive way.  This is not censorship.
    
    No, but it does leave those of us who answered your question in good
    faith looking a bit silly doesn't it ? Sort of lead up the garden path
    looking for goats, perhaps ? I think you owe us an explanation. Is
    this meeting revenue generating or are they having a chin-wag about
    the n**nth reorg to avoid having to manage? 

    
    >I wanted to 
    >stimulate discussion in a more positive way.
    
    
    	This is a very good advertisement for "thinking before you
    	speak", isn't it?
    

    >>It is a pep rally and it is to make sure the folks at the top understand 
    the CSC.
    
    Pep rallies are out, aren't they? As for understanding the new
    structure, that could be achieved with an info-pack, e-mails, a few
    phone conferences, and maybe, just maybe a tour of the center by 6 people 
    who take the message back. It would seem to me to be precisely the sort of
    thing that was meant to be stopped by the travel/expenditure freeze.
    Smells like goats again to me, or am I missing something ?
    
    Kevin 

    Ready! Fire! Aim!
    
    Jerry

The base note was deleted again????

			Steve

    MCS FY 97 Kickoff.......  Since when is a kickoff ONLY for UPPER
    management, i.e., District and Territory level (and VP's of course). 
    I'm in sales in MCS and it's certainly NOT being referred to as a
    Kickoff here in this territory (that I've heard).
    
    What I have heard is, with the "reorg", these folks have to get
    together to decide which MCS customer will be serviced direct (by MCS
    New Business Sales Reps); which ones will be serviced via Channels
    (with the aid of a New Business Sales Rep) and which ones will be
    serviced direct by the Installed Base Specialists (BASE Sales reps). 
    Along with designing the "permanent housing" that will replace the
    "temporary housing" that we've been in for the last 4 or 5 months.
    
    Again, no "REVENUE generation" happening, and if things continue along
    their present course, there'll be no sales reps left to handle these
    accounts that these high level managers have gone off to assign.
    
    South Central Territory has lost two BASE Sales Reps last week, senior
    people with 20+ years dedicated service and I can tell you that many
    more are desperately looking....
    
    Just mine.....
    
    Toodles.....JPs
    

But Liesl,

Will the usual rose colored glasses get passed out before the dog and pony
shows or will they all be exposed to the real state of affairs such as
described elsewhere in this conference?

mark

Mark, I couldn't say. I'm not in any of the meetings. And like the
memo says "times are tough, we can only afford the dog".

My team was primarily interested in making sure that sales knows
we and our products exist. I certainly did mention how small we
are now and that we have had no marketing. I don't know what the
call specialists may have said. And I missed the kickoff with
Janet Wallace as I chose to eat lunch after the demos. I did hear
applause as I walked past the cafeteria where she was speaking. 

I will say that all the folks we gave demos to were attentive and
asked intelligent questions. They certainly acted as if they are
here to learn. liesl

    Forgive me, but as one who coordinated this trip for Janet in the
    Western Region, I can tell you this trip was arranged for customer
    visits [yes revenue generating customers].  During these times when
    customer's are reading the same negative press releases as we are; it
    is imperative that high-level calls on our customer base would be
    required to retain that base.
    
    The visit with the employees at the Chicago facility was a caveat to an
    already jam packed schedule.
    
    I'm not sure Janet's office will appreciate my  offering this
    information, but it just bugged me how easily we jump to conclusions
    without knowing the full story.
    
    Get a grip folks, I realize that our confidence in upper management has
    been shaken, but this kind of accuse and assume is really detrimental
    to all of our well beings.
    
    It reminds me of a story my pastor told about gossip.. a woman who saw
    her pastor holding his head while leaning up against a tavern assumed
    that he was inebriated.  She began to tell people in the congregation
    what she had seen.
    
    This created great havoc amongst the people.  When the pastor
    discovered who had started this rumor, he called her to his office and
    asked her why she had said this thing.  She explained the day and time
    of her observation of him leaning against the building, to which he
    confirmed that she was indeed correct.  However, he had just walked
    across the street from his dentist where he'd just undergone surgery.
    
    She was incredibly remorseful for her assumption and asked what she
    could do to repair the demage.  He asked her to take a feather pillow
    into the street, cut it open  and let all of the feathers scatter. 
    When all were scattered for her to go and gather all of the feathers
    and put them back into the pillow case.  
    
    She exclaimed that this was impossible to do.  To which the pastor
    replied, the feathers represent your gossip.
    
    

Dear MCS,

I read all of these notes in the conference entry, I noticed one that talked 
about Not having MCS Digital Sales Reps covering accounts, actually thinking 
about "Partners" that would cover instead. Perhaps, you need to look at the 
company direction first the SBU model, now the consolidation efforts of the 
SBU/ABU moving business through channels and not having the cost 
infrastructure to service all customers via the direct model.

At least if you have been monitoring the company direction, it is clearly 
channel/partner centric. I remember two years ago when the "end-user" direct 
sales reps were caught in the surprise via major TSFOs, that was the 
direction. Why is MCS so surprised that this model would not be forthcoming 
to them too?  And MCS has had considerable time to adapt and be prepared 
unlike alot of the individuals that did not have the heads-up to see it 
coming.

I had the opporuntity to pick up the pieces after, MCS has had the chance to 
plan the event and ensure better coverage/support.

    >>>I can tell you this trip was arranged for customer visits [yes revenue 
    generating customers].
    
    Thank you for the clarification, which I accept in good faith. 
    
    Kevin

    I've heard the "feather story" before. But I thought the anology was 
    in reference to trying to get everyone back on the bus after lastnites
    "party" in Cripple Creek?? I only heard this in passing this morning,
    so someone else can enlighten us with the facts, if they care to. 
    
    deadhead

    Well, that "fether story" is an old well known one to Eastern Orthodox
    Christians, only replace the "pastor" with St. Paul, and the "gossip" was
    an Ephesian (I think).
    
    Deb

    
    The feathers represent your Ephesian?
    
    

    no, the Ephesian was a person that gossiped, and saw what harm the
    gossip did to someone and wanted "take back the words that were
    spread". St. Paul said take a feather pillow, onto a hill, and make
    all the feathers fly into the breeze. Then try to gather them all back."
    The Ephesian exclaimed "that is impossible". St.Paul then pointed out
    that to gather every last feather was a task equal to taking back the
    gossipy words that damaged someone's reputation. 
    
    The point was that your words are like the feathers that flew into the
    breeze and you don't know were every last one landed, so you can't
    always take them back, and if you say something carelessly, you could
    irrevokably hurt someone's reputation.
    
    Deb

    :-)  Works either way..

Maybe the moral is not "gossip is like feathers", but "this is how far our 
confidence in upper management has been shaken". Regaining our confidence is 
like retrieving the feathers.

PJDM

Article: 43496
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: [email protected] (Terry C. Shannon )
Subject: What You Missed By NOT Subscribing To Shannon Knows DEC...
Sender: [email protected] (Mr Usenet Himself)
Organization: Shannon Knows DEC
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 13:04:55 GMT
 
THE DAUGHTER OF ALL DEC REORGANIZATIONS
 
(c) June 196 by Terry C. Shannon, Publisher, Shannon Knows DEC
 
Just when you thought it was safe to frame and mount your DEC
organizational chart, along comes yet another reorg. Earlier this month,
Digital announced the reorganization of John Rando�s Multivendor Customer
Services business unit into three separate units that form a new Digital
Services Division. The reconstituted service organization combines DEC�s
SI and Network Services businesses into a single unit, and focuses on
financially attractive enterprise service solutions for large and
medium-sized companies.
 
Challenges...
 
Why �yet another reorg?� First and foremost, MCS emerged largely unscathed
from the Summer �94 �Mother of all Reorganizations,� and thus continued to
be plagued by the matrix management and inefficiency that precipitated the
1994 corporate overhaul. An inevitable decline in service gross margin
(see chart), declining revenues and escalating expenses in the traditional
break/fix business, and a need to adopt a more channel-centric services
focus were additional contributors to the decision.
 
And Opportunities
 
John Rando believes that DEC�s primary service opportunities involve the
integration of systems- and network-based solutions, multivendor product
service and interoperability support, and management of customer IT
operations. The three Digital Services Division units reflect an effort to
exploit these opportunities while reducing MCS inefficiency and overhead
expense.
 
The new division also reflects four key agenda items: expanding customer
coverage and partner relationships, addressing metrics and
structure-related MCS operational issues, better leveraging the synergy
between the ABU and SBU, and increasing DEC�s focus on services.
 
A Service Triumvirate
 
The Digital Services Division encompasses Multivendor Customer Services,
Operations Management Services, and Systems Integration. The MCS business
unit will continue to provide traditional service offerings, albeit with
an increased emphasis on enterprise services for medium to large
companies. The unit is chartered to provide availability and
interoperability support for complex, multivendor environments and to
provide total service event management.
 
While DEC will continue to provide ongoing break/fix support for its
current customer base, the firm�s focus is on mission-critical Unix, WNT,
and Internet/Intranet environments. Sales will be through DEC and its
channels partners. Implicit in the firm's statement that it will �work
with a select number of channel partners to meet the needs of the broader
market for Digital services� is an increased reliance on partners as
generic warranty service providers.
 
The Operations Management Services Business Unit combines DEC�s high-end
Productivity Services offerings with Outsourcing Management Services to
provide 100 percent custom solutions that focus on desktop, distributed
data center, and enterprise application management as well as Internet and
Intranet management. 
The Systems Integration Business Unit combines DEC�s existing SI and NI
functions and will focus on targeted application areas including mail and
messaging; electronic commerce; information management; enterprise
applications; manufacturing execution systems; and telecom industry
solutions. 
 
Salesforce Shuffle
 
In conjunction with the formation of the Services Division, DEC announced
the consolidation of the Accounts Business Unit and the Systems Business
Unit �demand pull� sales organization into a new enterprise sales force.
The ABU infrastructure�comprised of sales and technical support,
marketing, human resources, and finance personnel�will be merged into the
SBU. Accordingly, the ABU will be transformed from a business unit
measured on P&L into a sales function measured on revenue and expense. In
addition to reducing overhead, the reorg consolidates DEC�s selling
organizations into a single business unit that consists of several selling
groups. The ABU�s Corporate Accounts Group will continue to provide direct
sales coverage to major accounts, while an expanded General Accounts Group
will provide direct coverage to a second tier of accounts which currently
are serviced by channel partners.
 
When the reorg is fully implemented, some ~1200 to ~1400 customers will be
able to call a Digital sales representative instead of a distributor. This
initiative doubles the number of accounts that qualify for direct
coverage, and introduces a new direct sale/indirect fulfillment model that
allows DEC to maintain more control over the sales cycle. Under this
model, a second-tier customer will call a DECrep to place a product order.
The DECrep generates a quote, gets credit for the order, then passes the
quote along to a channel partner for order fulfillment. Theoretically,
this is a win-win-win situation: the customer has a direct Digital
contact, the DECrep gets credit for products delivered through a channel
partner, and the channel partner reaps the margin from the product sale.
No less important is the fact that DEC�s direct involvement in the sales
cycle makes it far less likely that a channel partner will try to convince
a prospective AlphaServer customer to buy an HP, IBM, Sun, or similar
competitive product.
 
Watch This Space...
 
Additional business unit realignment and consolidation is in the works at
Digital. Although a final decision has not yet been made, the WNT-specific
portion of the firm�s workstation business may be destined for a new home
in the PCBU. The SBU�s charter has been expanded to enable the unit to
sell Intel-based servers. And with the realignment of StorageWorks and OEM
products into the SBU, the CPBU has precious few components and
peripherals left to sell. The CPBU does about $125M and $200M in annual
memory and printer sales respectively, but neither product is integral to
DEC�s business strategy. Accordingly, SKD believes that the continued
viability of the CPBU is questionable. Dissolving this unit would enable
Charlie Christ to devote more attention to Digital Semiconductor and to
the expansion of the Alpha franchise. Stay tuned!
 
SKD is a **subscription** based newsletter that's published 24 times per
year. For subscription information and a sample copy, email your
**POSTAL** address to [email protected].

    There's more content in that than in a year's supply of Digital Toady.