An expected restructuring is taking place at software giant, Microsoft. Sources say the company is planning to overhaul and reorganize its sales structure, which also means layoffs in the coming days. This restructuring exercise focuses on bolstering the sales team and improving the way the company sells its cloud software and services.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced changes in the sales and marketing departments. As a result, several sales and marketing team members were shifted under Judston Althoff, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the Global Business Group.
However, even though there is a fear of mass layoffs looming across the organization, sources indicate a huge number of employees may not be asked to leave. Microsoft may have a plan to reassign those affected and there is also the possibility of having position cuts as a result of the attrition.
Back in 2016, Microsoft announced a mass layoff of close to 3000 employees (2850 to be exact) which comprised of 900 employees from its sales team. This was after considerable staff from its smartphone business was asked to leave.
Althoff has put tremendous effort into focusing on its cloud platform Azure and the services around cloud software. He has channeled efforts of the company’s salesforce to improve sales in this area and to sign up more resellers to the Cloud Solution Provider program.
However, things are still very bleak when it comes to Microsoft’s sales strategy. Sources say the company is coming up with a new approach to sell support services to customers that will increase their overall spend. How this will impact the volume licensing model is not clear.
Even though Microsoft has not commented on recent developments, what is surprising is restructuring comes just a few days before Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference followed by the Sales & Marketing Conference.
Anirudh M. for TechFunnel.com
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