Many on my team RA’d today including me. No specifics on package but said to be in alignment with other recent RAs.
26 replies (most recent on top)
Forget skeletons Burn that org and make it ash
Get down to the skeleton crew and call, it a day. 10 folks should be enough 3 per distributor with a manager on top. Make the distributors do all of the work (marketing, selling, services, cloud, SW, etc etc) IBM should divorce itself EXCEPT for the IP revenue from the legacy, and the licensing for Cognitive (mostly redhat)
Channels is stuffed with all the losers who couldn't cut it in front of clients so we stick them in Channels where they can do the least amount of damage.
Should be virtually no budget They are unneeded Use analytics to autopass based on product sales
You are most likely correct about channels, thus the skeleton crew model. I believe the AK executive team came to the same conclusion as you and have them a slimmed down budget and said “thats it”
Channels is waste of funding. Their loyalties lie with the BP they think may be their parachute. Total overlay added cost. Zero value add.They would never be missed
IBM has had a love hate relationship with the Channel since it was born in the mid-late 90’s IBM loves it’s lower cost (you only pay partners when they sell), but IBM hates the lack of relationship with the end user customers (the channel never shares info unless it benefits them). NOTE every other organization (HP, Lenovo, SuperMicro, etc etc) has the same love hate relationship. No one has figured out the optimum staffing and funding model. You need a funding model that encourages IBM sales vs other OEM’s, but doesn’t bankrupt that funding model. It’s a very slippery slope the channel managers must walk, and one that the channel has learned to exploit quite well. I suspect IBM is trying yet another model with a skeleton crew working for IBM to keep costs down, and offering up funding to favor IBM product placement. I believe AK has decided there is only so much funding he is willing to invest, and has told the channel “make hay with this amount of funding, or else walk away” If so, that will be the first time the channel has ever had some true discipline imposed on it. Will it work? Only time will tell, but if IBM is truly willing to walk away from the scale out market place to favor enterprise, that is a new model that should have been proposed 20 years ago when the channel was first formed. Pushing the decision point down to the partners most likely makes the most sense since they are closest to the customer, and know what is needed to close the deals. Once you establish what the new funding model will look like, the channel/BP’s will figure out how to monetize it, and implement a go to market strategy.
Everyone in Channels should be canned. The whole organization is such a waste of resources. Totally redundant and unnecessary
Spoke with a friend of mine in Systems Marketing (enterprise, not channel) last night. Just one person in his immediate org let go, but at least one entire team in channel marketing.
Yeah cause if you can't be a top 5 company you should just quit... This old chestnut.
5 days ago/August 15, 2021 https://liquidat.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/good-bye-red-hat/
Is it happennig today too?
Article in link is a year old and Fv
There's this old obsession with this idea that IBM can somehow be saved by Red Hat and hyped-up Whitehurst, but we already know that IBM fires Red Hat employees too, sometimes for no good reason http://techrights.org/2020/08/02/red-hat-layoffs/
Post from TheLayoff.com
Your ignorance is showing. FAANG and others who are kick the cr-p out of IBM know how to do marketing. IBM is lost. They believe that the more they spam big accounts, the more that marketing contributes.
Now that I think of it from the perspective that IBM is horrible at marketing, you question is a good one. MP was an albatross on the company. The myopic focus on "would you recommend us" with 0 context and full opportunity for poor performers to game the system, was pure trash from the start (those in the trenches thought otherwise). She also was core of the "get rid of everyone who knows anything and hire in 20 year olds who know next to nothing to replace them" strategy.
Marketing? What do you guys do anyway? It is time for IBM to separate itself of anyone that does not directly contribute to the top line. Sorry guys!
What package are you referring to? Please elaborate with details. There have been a few different ones over the past year or two.
Sorry you all got hit. Been there, done that.
OP here - @bmo+1cp1eEaZ is correct. It was done en masse for my group so few specifics were given. Script was read and told we would receive email with details. I’m sure email is there but I am offline today.
Confirmed for one more in Marketing. Same package as everyone else.
Which BUs are doing this in mass?
Waiting on my 1x1 in an hour…
Confirmed there is a mass layoff in marketing today, I know several people affected. It is across all marketing. The meeting was a 1:1 with my second line. Same package offered through the last year.
I had a colleague who became an IBM exec in the power brand. He did quite well and retired out as a 4th line several years ago. One of his statements that always intrigued me was that the channel/BP organization was actually cheaper (17-19 % SG&A) for IBM to support vs direct support (23% SG&A). It seems IBM today decided to go all in on that strategy for tier two and smaller accounts. Play out what that means. Today Marketing is getting notified for all products, but tomorrow, FTSS’s, lab services, sales, cloud, and various other support organizations will also be outsourced just like marketing. IBM Will skeleton crew the channel and outsource as much as they can to the channel. It makes perfect bean counters sense, EXCEPT that the channel over the years has morphed into a mercenary organization and their loyalty comes at a steep price. Bean counters always fail to price in the intangible costs
All who have commented so far are wrong. This layoff is so massive within marketing that execs are doing it in mass (not flm) and having large meetings to review the package. The execs give 0 Fs, because they are part of the layoff.
What sort of psychopath makes false RA announcements? Are you covered in peanut butter right now and ma---------g? Get help. Or find a bartender. But definitely shut the he-l up.
+1 on that last comment. Your FLM will read off a script and then send a detailed email that the moment you hang up the phone.
That said, it is Thursday, so not out of the question that there will be layoffs some week.
I call BS that you were RA’d, as someone who has had to layoff many over past two years, your manager will go over the package specifics and send you detailed mail right after.