I know a lot of field reps that have no support and have no idea what to position. For veteran sales reps the support teams they used to rely on are gone. Customers with on premise needs are being ignored in field. OD is just asking how many cores the customers have to "pitch" a deal. New reps are dead in the water, odds are their manager is also new and has no clue as to how things are done.
The sales reps are the healthiest. The sales consultants are hourly workers. Very odd to begin with. It all goes back to several lawsuits where Oracle paid a high salary and then were not paid for overtime. A good SC can easily put in 50 hours a week preparing for meetings, doing research on technical questions, traveling to and from airports, catching long flights and working late in the hotel.
After Oracle lost the lawsuit they adjusted the base lower (around 60) per hour and then expected 10 hours a week of overtime. Assume 50 weeks at 40 hours at 60 per hour (2000 x $60) gives a flat base around $120,000. The over time was about 90 dollars per hour so about 900 per week. 900 per week assume 50 weeks is about $45,000. So the base pay of an SC used to be around $165,000. Lets not forget a 600 per month car allowance at about $7,200 per year.
That plus bonus (used to be anywhere from 25 to 45k per year) could put you anywhere from 173k base to 210k OTE on average. This should not be news to anyone as this is the industry average for a good sales consultant.
Since 2014 things changed. The car allowance was removed at a handsome $7,200 pay cut. Sure you get mileage on your car but you have to track that, and if its over 600 per month at .55 per mile you better be able to show the mileage logs. Then came the "Hey man are you really working 10 hours over time a week?" So the base was 173k - 7.2k = 166k Still not bad.
After that in 2015 you got questioned and pushed back anything over 5 hours per week of overtime by your manager. So your base was 166k - (5x90 per week = $450 less per week at 50 weeks = 22,500) New base =166-22.5 = $143.00. Ok so I am feeling the pay cut in 2015, but the bonus puts me in the 160 to 180 range. Friends at other companies make more, but its not bad.
Now comes 2016 with a slap to the face. If you are not an ECA we don't like you. Your Oracle Apps, DB, and middle ware skills are no longer valuable to Oracle. Say what? Yeah. Now your bonus is based only on cloud sales. Lets see cloud is at best 10% of revenue (and really how much of that is cloud credits?) So instead of 25k to 45k bonus you get about 10% of that 2k to 5k. Total comp is now about $150k.
Also try interviewing with Oracle skills. Who is hiring for people soft sales consulting skills? Just Oracle. If all of your tech knowledge is not seen as valuable at Oracle imagine how much less so it is at other companies. Good skills these days are hands on with Big Data, Cloud, Agile development and well everything not Oracle.
Staying at Oracle now is not only bad for your bank account its bad for your career. Also in 2016 350 Channel Partner reps and SCs are dropped like a bad habit. No warning... just poof you are gone. Job security is now out the window.
http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300081276/oracle-lays-off-veteran-channel-execs-cuts-support-staff-in-push-to-sell-more-cloud-licenses-direct.htm
So what is going on? Field sales is dead and dying. Oracle is killing it in a harsh way. The want order takers in OD. They want people to to a webex demo remote, close the deal and execute a contract.
I don't know of any sales organization in the world that is successful doing this. Now if you are naive you might think this is how it goes at Sales Force and Workday. So you might think this is the new way of doing things. I'd say if you really believe this, then I have some land and a few bridges I'd like to sell you. Sadly I think this is how the Execs at Oracle think the world is headed.
Good luck.
If any one in sales or sales consulting with half a brain stops and thinks for a bit about the cloud strategy at Oracle, and they are honest with themselves, its obvious how this will play out. AWS, Microsoft and Google invested about 10 billion each in infrastructure. Oracle invested (at best) 1.6 Billion. The customers see this. "How soon can you fire up an ExaCS if I sign today?" Can I get people soft in the cloud? What are your plans to integrate everything? Simple questions that an OD rep can't answer.
Its laughable:
https://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/3008789/aws-oracles-cloud-investment-claims-dont-add-up
Oracle cloud will not sell in the next two years. It might be something in 3 years. But no one in field sales now will live to see it. I expect to see more reports on this board tomorrow.
Just got notice in support...
Just got notice in hardware...
Just got notice in sales...
Just got notice in sales consulting...
The titanic hit an iceberg and took 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink. I'm sure people scrambled about wondering if they should get on a life boat or not. I'm sure there was a lot of denial on deck. Take a look around you. Oracle just struck a cloudberg. Its taking on water. Nothing is good, no news is good.
You think bare metal is good? It is. Is it going to save Oracle? It would if Oracle would invest in infrastructure, but Oracle is not. It has no plans to do so. Amazon has already matched it, take a look at the links below and compare specs. They are investing 10 billion in infrastructure.
https://www.flashgrid.io/wp-content/sideuploads/resources/FlashGrid_OracleRAC_on_AWS.pdf
https://aws.amazon.com/new/reinvent/compute/
I am interviewing with AWS, I am on the final presentation. Good luck to the rest of you. I can guarantee a truly horrible FY2018 as the cloud sales simply will not meet target. There will be little if any survivors in field sales this year. My advice do what you have to do to get your paycheck and spend 40 hours a week updating your resume and linked in and interview full time.