Ding do-g the witch is dead!!!
23 replies (most recent on top)
@140 MacGrath is terrible. Never changed a single pitch in 10 years and I’ve had a customer tell me they would never speak to him again. All he did was bash MSFT and didn’t add any value to our story. The customer had to intervene and ask for him to start talking WKS1
@1jw Are we all in agreement that they were pushing on completing self assessments because they will be used to justify PIPs or protect against lawsuits when they start laying people off?
@1a2 "The SE/SA/SC team is still trying to figure out what their title is for the day "
Very true... between the number of tools to capture the same date 73 times and the excel sheets to capture weekly activity as well as cold calling the customers and preparing a pitch ready in a can in case you are all of a sudden called on (aka ambushed) by your boss's boss to present the "pitch".
There is no solid plan in place to get this company on track... NONE!
Layoffs will continue... loss of revenues will continue... the talent drain (if any is left) will continue...
The only question is what will be left in 12 to 18 months when they hit the ground?
The SE/SA/SC team is still trying to figure out what their title is for the day since it changes every other days
One sure fire clue to tell you that thungs are broken is when leaders focus on what to call things instead of defining the mission, the swimlanes, and then hekp their teams succeed.
"HR" becomes PX. SE becomes SC.
Nothing changes for real. (New) leaders who push for naming changes basicay admit that they cant identify problems and fix them.
Remember when that dufus chief marketing officer at VMware renamed "VMworld" to something else?
It's what I call prioritizing style over substance and is at the root of many problems not only in the corporate world, but in society in general.
@14h ". one day they are being told "just focus on selling" while the next day they are told "you are a TAM" and then immediately are told "oh no, you are just selling stuff" and by the way, you are now expected to magically become experts of a load of other products over night because "Mommy and Daddy have left"..."
So true...
Unfortunately, northing will change... KN was not the only problem with this train wreck. The product is outdated and the people in charge of this ship are clueless. Most people have checked out because they have no faith in their leaders any more and are just burnt out. We keep loosing customers by the day... and for good reasons too. Our purchasing process is too painful, and in many cases the right procurement vehicles just don't exist. I have spoken to customers who have straight out told me they would have bought from us if the process was as easy as our competitors. We have failed to understand that not every customer fits in the buckets that we have created for them as a customer...
Internally, things are not any better, put in a request for a payroll issue and it takes weeks before you get a simple response... months before you get a resolution. If your hardware is up for a refresh, you are looking at weeks if not months before you get replacement. Are we broke and just don't want to show it?
The SE/SA/SC team is still trying to figure out what their title is for the day since it changes every other days in hopes that they could one day figure out what their job description and role is... one day they are being told "just focus on selling" while the next day they are told "you are a TAM" and then immediately are told "oh no, you are just selling stuff" and by the way, you are now expected to magically become experts of a load of other products over night because "Mommy and Daddy have left"...
Can you imagine being a customer and on the receiving end of all this mediocre nonsense... we live in a world where our biggest competitors don't even take us seriously any more. Not a single one of the customers I know are impressed or confident in buying from us again.
Every single talented person is gone... let that sink in! This ship is sinking fast and before you know it all the "leaders" will be leaving on their life boats while everyone else sinks with the ship.
@140 Kelly as head of marketing plus a vp of product marketing who actually knew what they were doing would do wonders for the company.
I expect Upadhyay and McGrath are next to go, also removed for cause like Norlin.
That won't happen until their boss is gone, which might be sooner than expected.
I expect Upadhyay and McGrath are next to go, also removed for cause like Norlin.
Norlin is still on the website https://www.omnissa.com/author/kevin-norlin
I’ve genuinely never worked with anybody less fit for a position than KN. He was a pr--k, incompetent and lazy at the end of the day. Jenkins sc--wed the company but Norlin buried it.
and how much is the problem deeper and linked to the product (or more)?
It is deeper. Sales SVP was the first order problem because he never hit his bookings target and was incapable of forecasting, even his week 13 forecast was waaaaayyyy off. Every quarter.
But revenue is stagnating and net retention rate is below 100, meaning that the revenue from existing customers was down. Growth would have to come exclusively from "new". As "expansion" in existing customers wasnt strong enough to drive real growth.
When that happens, you have a combination of shift in wallet share, product market fit, product quality, support experience and on an on.
Any thoughts, the guy asking for referrals to CRO.
That was weird. Everybody knows that this was a dismissal for cause and that a search must have been going on for a while. Didn't seem credible.
How bad was the CEO chat this morning? The CEO looked defeated. Any thoughts, the guy asking for referrals to CRO. How fast are layoffs coming?
@dk fair point and good analysis. The problem with that strategy is that there is nowhere to pivot. The only thing the market is excited about are large LLM companies and Omnissa lacks both the resources and skills to pivot to this area. The best strategy would be to try to hold onto market share and right size the business model to fit a smaller market share. Just another zombie SaaS company.
@dk Wondering from the larger audience: how much of the problem was the former sales leader (and might be fixed with a new person in place) and how much is the problem deeper and linked to the product (or more)?
A former coworker mentioned KN was gone, which brought me to this site.
He was a bad hire; he didn't have the skills, experience, or personality to lead a new spinout sales team that quickly needed to gain an identity. Odd how quickly he moved up through the ranks with 0 results. He only motivated people to leave, which I did after a few of his " ask me anything" gym calls (but I have no answers).
I've been with a partner and see the market from a different viewpoint. Omnissa needs to figure out a plan B, as customers are shifting away from what you're selling. Not that the products are bad, but most customers I talk with have already reduced seat counts or are looking to do so soon, either because there are lower-cost, less complex solutions now available or because the use case no longer requires virtualization. I don't see WS1 anymore; all Intune. Good luck!
Who gets to spend more time in the home gym wearing shirts 2 sizes too small? WE DO!
@a5 the first and the worst one
which one?
@a3 India CEOs continue to be a trainwreck: Magoo at vmware, here, IBM, Microsoft lmao
Every one else is at fault except the CEO and his cronies buddies from VMware days. When will he transition himself? Such a disaster which continues to go worse.
how bad were sales this quarter? any point in doing these self evals lmao