The news was going to arrive any moment, but now that it has arrived, Microsoft may do well to deal with professionally. In the latest development as reported, thousands of its global Salesforce will be laid off so that it can shift its focus on cloud software sales more effectively. Widely regarded as one of the biggest organizations in the world when it comes to science and technology, Microsoft’s move could surely indicate a drastic shift of interests as it looks to merge the unit of enterprise customers and the SME-targeted divisions in multiple numbers. While Microsoft themselves are yet to announce all of these in detail, changes are imminent and the cat will soon be out of the bag, if the reports from various quarters are to be believed.
A big change on the cards
Last summer was pivotal for Microsoft as the two people who took charge of Sales and Marketing were heavily critical of the erstwhile approaches of this department. Surely, they believed that it is time for Microsoft to gear up for the big change and surely that cannot be done without removing some of the dead weeds that have gathered over the years. Cloud technology is a state-of-the-art thing and new technology requires new workforce. Hence, the layoff is not seen as a measure to reduce its headache but strengthen the workforce like no other. Despite Microsoft’s refusal to say anything, its recent emphasis on cloud has been self-explanatory.
Sales is the main target
The potential of cloud to radically alter the potential of sales and marketing has been discussed in millions of articles and papers already. Hence, despite all the hush-hush processes, the shifts have been made obvious. However, from whatever the insider reports have gathered, it may well be the most significant change in Microsoft history in terms of sales force and it may remain a milestone for the years to come. With recent share drops in Microsoft, it is possible to predict that these reports are not just rumours but there are firm factual bases for them. In fact, the market has sensed the change and hence, they are waiting with baited breath to see what Microsoft would do in the next few weeks.
Affecting other division
The layoff of the COO last summer was a potential indicator of this change since he used to supervise as many as 51,000 employees who were spread across departments like sales, operations, marketing and corporate technology. The new subdivisions as well as new faces in the lead goes to show what could possibly be on the cards. With nearly 4,000 employees already facing layoff, the figure could be even higher. The interesting aspect will be to see what Microsoft does to the 10,000 employees who were hired by the acquisition of LinkedIn recently. It is highly likely that Microsoft will stop dealing with physical software altogether and move everything to cloud, changing the very way it has done business over the years. Needless to say, the impact will be far-reaching.
