Ok, so here is what’s happening. Except for the very largest customers there will no longer be Account SEs/SAs. They will be pooled behind C2E at the region level. They will be specialized. The current TSAs will no longer be directly customer facing, instead being a higher tier of specialization available to SEs for support. GVE will cover the smallest accounts.
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Cisco sending pre-sales SEs / CSEs to technical sales training stopped after the 2001 dot com bubble. SAGE is a farce when it's self-accessed. Give me an exam and THEN you'll be able to tell what level I am at. If the same exam was given to every SE/SA/CSE/TSA and the output score sent into SAGE, leadership would be better informed... and more importantly, the SE. They could better chart a career path in sales engineering as well. Cisco isn't putting a human on Mars. This isn't that hard folks. Put me in a pool, but put me in the correct pool to make the customer ecstatic, push me harder in the development of my technical sales career and pay me based on performance.
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Yeah pretty close. They went from customer assigned technical experts ... to being part of a "pool" of experts that anyone could use. They went from going to meet with customers in weekly meetings, to only being engaged when there was a selling motion.
Take for instance, a company, that has a weekly team meeting. The solutions SE and solutions sales specialist joined the meeting, would hear what was going on, offer ideas, and in general understand the pulse of the team and company. Cool!
Now, with C2E... the SE is no longer assigned to that company. the SE now has 1-10 areas where they are an "Expert". They are permitted to be in to 1-50 customer opportunities. they aren't assigned to any region, or any specialty. they are solely opportunity based. So the SE went from understanding the business and projects of their 1-20 customers... on a weekly assigned basis. to only being there when there was something to sell.
So you used to have an SE, who was assigned, who you could call if you had a technical question. Who you could engage if you had a new project. who you could engage if you had an issue with TAC to help escalate... now.. that person is gone. abandoned.
This is starting to happen in the CX org. Ultimately they will be bidding on jobs/work. It's coming. All of architecture should be watching this and pushing back hard. Of course if it came from V2MOM hag we all know that someone pushing back or saying anything different is going to be shown the door so you know how this ends as long as her and chucky boy are still around.
Eric Knipp is trying to give Chuck a run for his money in running this company to the ground. Who can ki-l it first?
This is all Eric trying to reduce pre-sales engineering costs so he gets bigger bonus.
@1grh+1fNBSeEQ - the issue with SAGE is the self reporting. Do I rate myself a 4 in DC networking but I am really a 1....or a 3 in end point security and I am really a 4. I've worked in different segments, operations, regions across Cisco. You see SEs rate themselves verses their regional peers for the most part but some regions are much stronger than others. The problem you face when you do set requirements(we need metrics don't we) is that then it can be measured. This becomes very problematic with any amount of turnover and even more difficult if you find yourself priced out of the hiring market based on the skills you are looking for.
@1grh+1fNBSeEQ as if it would ever lead to actual training. You’re either a propagandist, or low level so not let in on the truth.
The reason why leadership is asking for specialization in SAGE is that we can measure the overall the proficiency in different technology areas. At a macro level, it helps us determine future enablement needs and where we should potentially invest in specialist resources. Don't overthink things... So much drama!
So SEs just went from customer facing technical leaders to call center employees?
Talk to your manager now so he knows which specialization you want!!!
Confirmed. This is being based off of SAGE. SAs will have limited input in their assigned specialization.
@bui+1fNBSeEQ The AM, as it should be now. Look up the definition of what an “Account Manager” (as an English term, not Cisco’s job description) does.
Who handles when the customer is just generally ticked off at Cisco? A license issue, a sideways TAC case, need to call somebody right away, etc. This will lead to a lack of account ownership. Customer sentiment is already bad with CX. Stick all the SEs in a CX queue and see how that works out.
When is this going public?
This is what I heard as well except how GVE fits in is new to me.