Conference 7.286::digital

    It's nice to hear, that Digital works in a uniform way in 100+ countries,
    800+ locations, i.e. all over the World! (Thanks to our policies...)
                                               

    
    
    My question would be, "why didn't the sales rep know about the
    opportunity before this?"  Are we still sitting around and waiting for
    customers to call us and request orders, or are we out beating feet?
    
    
    
    Mike

    re -1
    
    	You miss the point completely, sales reps can't possibly know
    about every opportunity at every account.  .0 illustrates the 
    gross, and confusing overlap of our services business.
    
    The beat goes on.
    
    Brad.

    
     Hey, so what if he missed the point. You see this stuff every day.
    MCS over SI over blah and blah. MCS agreements with other companies
    over blah and blah. Fiefdoms, kingdoms and empires.
    
     Seperate business units delivering comparable or alike services.
    
    Bullcrap. ONE company, one point into the organization for services.
    Marry all the service units together. End of story. You'll shake out
    a ton of overhead, and probably axe a lot of delivery people in the
    process, me included, but in the long run, it will server the customers
    better.
    
    -Mike Z.

    
    You're forgetting just one thing - overhead is our core compentancy...
    
    Besides, we've spent millions dividing ourselves into fiefdoms so as
    to maintain our core compentancies and associated overhead.
    
    I think the rep should just grab the first available resource, give
    it 24 hours to prepare a proposal/statement of work/quote, and get
    a presentation together for the customer, allign the resources with
    the appropriate cost center, and close the deal.
    
    Of course, getting credit may be a different story altogether.
    
    Merry Christmas Digital....
    
    		the Greyhawk

The really sad part about this is that MCS will gladly sell the service,
and only after the contract is signed realize that it has nobody qualified to
deliver.  So they'll yank someone from engineering, hand them a beeper and
say "Tag - you're it!".  Meanwhile, MCS will pocket all the revenue without
compensating the engineering group who is actually delivering for them.

I am not making this up - I spoke to two engineers last week who were in this
mess.

					Steve

RE: .-1 (grabbing people from Engineering)

Add pre-Sales support people to this list.  I am involved in 2 issues right
now this minute that are *definitely* in the MCS/SI arena, and in both cases 
I am being asked to go on-site and do the work, and yet give the money to SI.

-- Ken Moreau

    re .4 - Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.  Remember "Digital
    Services"?  
    
    re .6 - To be fair Steve, this also happens the other way round. 
    Many-a-time within SI, I called upon MCS to unblock technical integration
    issues that were threatening SI delivery/revenue.  Several times we
    escalated so hard and fast that we flew CSC specialists on to customer
    site.  SI got the revenue, MCS got only respect, and the customer was
    just thankful.  Often we were working round severe quality problems
    in our own hardware engineering.   Hmmm - come to think of it - isn't
    this an example of what .4 was asking for?
    
    /Chris.

    
    
    
    My comment wass not a dig at Digital sales, but rather the way we are
    organized.  We are now infighting to see who is going to get credit for
    the opportunity.  Doing what's best for the customer is not first, it
    is who will get to put the $$$$$ in their till.  
    
    
    Mike

    
Ok, once again I'm sitting in the break area of a Digital field office 
sipping yet another diet coke with the MCS service engineer.  (This is 
a fictional situation, of course, but represents many situations for 
lots of customers that have occurred over time.)  I ask why the direct 
rep was unaware of the need for some consulting.  "The customer is in 
a smaller division of company "X" and went around us to buy the gear
for this project.  They went to a broker that is staging Alpha boxes 
in their basement.  They don't want to admit that they did this after 
all the time sales has spent helping them with their other divisions.  
They got a better deal than we can give them from the broker."

"Is that right?" I ask.  "Yep", I hear.

    How soon you all forget! It's an Olympic Year. It is critical that we
    maintain the appearance of being amateurs, so as not to endanger our
    status and be force out of the competition. 
    
    -OFWAMI-

Re 4319.10:

> Doing what's best for the customer is not first, it
> is who will get to put the $$$$$ in their till.

That's the metric.  They are paid to fulfill the metric.  They are not paid
to do what's best for the customer; that was DEC.  This is Digital.

___Pete

> > Doing what's best for the customer is not first, it
> > is who will get to put the $$$$$ in their till.
> 
> That's the metric.  They are paid to fulfill the metric.  They are not paid
> to do what's best for the customer; that was DEC.  This is Digital.
> 

Whatever it takes...

    Thanks Marty, I needed that.

    	This situation is everywhere. And grabbing people is everywhere too.

    I routinely do presales, SI delivery and just about everything else,
    and I'm in MCS. In our area, presales was all but destroyed. 2 people
    survived. They simply can not run fast enough to cover it all. The
    sales guy/gal happens to walk past a MCS cube and see's the engineer
    working with NT, or '95, or whatever, and instantly tries to grab this
    body for an upcoming sales call. 

    And the problem is even more complex then the surface implies. If the
    opportunity was smaller, then the same groups that fight and scratch for
    this opportunity would fight and scratch to avoid another.  Everyone's
    magic number seems to be about 20K per event. If it's smaller, most
    just turn and walk. I've billed every day in the month of DECEMBER
    except the 26th and the 28th on these small events.  

    	We have several local sales people that will sell anything,
    regardless of the ability of any local group to deliver it. "That's not
    my problem." is the common phrase. The group that picks this up, or is
    forced to pick this up, may have to spend twice the face value of the
    deal to deliver it. The whole time, the sales guy/gal gets credit for the
    whole amount. And if the receiving group has the guts to bill the
    difference to the customer, then the sales guy/gal gets credit for that
    too. Since none of our Sales force is measured on profit, just certs,
    then the delivering group can easily be given a white elephant with no
    chance of a win/win.

    	Now to a point, I believe the sales people should not be
    responsible to verify the local group's ability to deliver. But I also
    think the sales org should pony up the expenses to drag someone in from
    another area to deliver something they've sold. They should be glad to
    do it if the customer account hinges on it (like it does every time
    I've ever been involved :^) ).  If the future of the account hinges on
    this little point, then it would be in sale's best interest to do this.
    My overall impression, however, is that most are crying wolf, at least
    some of the time. 

    And the group that delivers should get the profit. If MCS, or SI, or 
    whoever, has added no value, then no credit should be awarded.

    	
    jim

Re .-1, .-2:

	Whatever it takes ... to meet the metric.

___Pete

    Just remember, it could have been a channels account in the first
    place.

    Or BOTH!  We have accounts that have direct sales reps supporting
    Value Added Resellers in the same account in many places.  Add in
    resellers quoting services and the situation quickly becomes very
    interesting.  
    
    Well, after a year's stint as the MCS delivery manager in St.
    Louis, I will be moving into a new role as an MCS principal 
    software specialist, delivering UNIX, Novell and NT consulting 
    (after a training period to get certified on Microsoft products).
    
    I wonder which Digital groups I may be competing with?  :^))
    

    re .18 
    
    ALL Digital groups.
    
    

    
    >>> ALL Digital groups.

        Speaking and writing in absolutes almost always gets you in 
        trouble.    

    re: my note.18
    
    OK, this change was a good move!  I finished the MCSE certification in
    March, got the cool shirt and have started consulting again.  (Most of
    the consulting has been Digital UNIX, DECsafe, etc.  I can usually be
    billed out at much higher rates on those products.)  A funny thing 
    happened on the way home from the Sylvan Prometric testing center...
    
    Microsoft solution providers have been calling intermittently over the
    last two months asking if I would be interested in "talking" to them
    about other opportunities.  It seems they heard about me from a friend
    or a former employee or some other way.  These folks are offering some
    SERIOUS increases.  It seems that every Microsoft solution provider
    out there needs another MCSE or two and demand has definitely exceeded
    supply.  Anybody else seeing the same thing?
    
    Marty 

    without talking $$ values, what do you call SERIOUS increases?
    
    Could you give us a %age indication?  - Might be good data for Digital
    management to see.  
    
    /Chris.

It was the same with CNE's a few years ago, now they are a dime
a dozen, be careful about putting your career in the same basket
as thousands of others...

Brad.

    re: -1 
    
    >same basket as thousands of others...
    
    I don't mind.  I did the CNE thing too and can STILL get a job doing
    that here as well as LOTS of other places at fairly good rates, 
    (certainly not as marketable as MCSE today.)  Hey, you just have to 
    watch the horizon and try to pick a good wave to ride.  Like other 
    career paths, some are better than others and you can only make an 
    educated guess.
    
    
    re: -2
    
    No, I'm not comfortable discussing $$ here, but I'm sure you can
    check out the economy in your area!
    
    Marty

    The author of -1 has considered the above mentioned oppertunity so much
    that he no longer works for Digital. Marty was a 18-20 year vet and had
    been a support engineer for at least the last 10 years. He was the
    acting field service manager for over a year in St. Louis. His
    expertise in unix will definitly cost us when he puts it to use for a
    competator. 
    
    	He never spoke of money too much but from years of conversations
    with him as a friend, I suspect he received at least 20%. Thats my
    opinion, of course, but I bet it's close. 
    
    
    jimbo