Today, the company has confirmed massive cuts. Through the Microsoft 2017 layoffs, there will be 3,000 people will be removed from their positions. As we mentioned in the previous report, many of the jobs will come from the company’s global salesforce team. Microsoft is continuing a wholesale transition to the cloud and many employees are surplus to requirements. Speaking with CNBC, Microsoft says that the sales division will be affected. However, most of the job cuts will happen outside the United States. A focus of the restructure will be the merger between its SME divisions and enterprise customers unit. Microsoft has a changing product catalog and customers are interacting with those products in different ways. The company will move towards an Azure oriented sales division. In a statement, a spokesperson confirmed the cuts with the following explanation: “Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners. Today, we are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated. Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others.”
Restructuring Sales
Moving its sales division towards the cloud has been underway since last year. That’s when Microsoft brought in Judson Althoff and Jean-Philippe Courtois to head up its sales and marketing business. The two executives are noted critics of a non-cloud driven sales division. Considering that, it is likely Microsoft has been playing a long game towards the cloud transition and the job cuts. Last year, Microsoft slashed thousands of jobs. After pulling back from making Lumia smartphones, the company cut 1,850 staff. That was only the tip of the iceberg as the Nokia devices purchase ultimately cost 7,800 jobs. In September 2016, Microsoft said it will cut 2,850 jobs, mainly from Skype locations and sales.
