Microsoft may be one of the biggest names in tech hardware and software throughout the world, giving the impression of a stable and secure work environment for its veritable army of employees. Yet in between the heavily hyped launches of services like updates to their Windows 10 operating system or the latest version of their Surface Pro hybrid laptop, it still cannot help but remind its people that it is still a tech company that has its job positions riding on the whims of the latest innovation. Microsoft just made a major announcement that would rock the world for its employees in the sales department, and not in a good way: layoffs.
Focusing on cloud business
This Wednesday, July 5th, Microsoft publicly unveiled plans for a global reorganization initiative across its sales positions. Unfortunately, it means that a number of the company's sales employees might end up being laid off their jobs. This was laid out in a press statement by the tech corporate juggernaut, although the internal announcement was made earlier on Monday. According to the statement, their company's reorganization will have Microsoft "taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated."
The proposed job cuts reveal that the positions which will be under the company’s “consideration” will amount to less than 10 percent of Microsoft’s total sales workforce.
However, the distribution of layoff probabilities indicates that 75 percent of the sales employees at risk are those from overseas offices and branches, as confirmed by Microsoft itself. The reorganization is being undertaken to emphasize more focus on their sales efforts to push its cloud computing services product, Microsoft Azure.
Changing approach to sales
Launched in 2010 – seven years ago – Azure is the vanguard for all Microsoft’s cloud-based businesses. Its recent quarterly report even boasts an impressive 93% in revenue growth. It is therefore understandable that the tech giant is taking steps to ensure that its cloud sales continue to have a strong showing.
This is important especially in the face of their primary competitor in this sector, Amazon. Hence the layoffs are seen as a necessity to reach that goal.
"Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis," a spokesperson for Microsoft said. "This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others." The company has 71,000 US and 121,000 global employees in all, and Microsoft is emphasizing this to point out that the jobs lost is going to be minimal.
