[dropcap]M[/dropcap]icrosoft is reorganising its sales and marketing operations in a bid to woo more customers in areas like artificial intelligence and the cloud by providing sales staff with greater technical and industry-specific expertise.
The company unveiled the steps in an e-mail to staff on Monday.
Commercial sales will be split into two segments, one focused on the biggest customers and the other for small and medium clients.
Employees will be aligned around six industries — manufacturing, financial services, retail, health, education and government. They’ll focus on selling software in four categories: modern workplace, business applications, apps and infrastructure and data and AI.
Microsoft is in a pitched battle with companies such as Amazon and Google for customers who want to move workplace applications and data to the cloud, as well as take advantage of advances in AI. The company, which has not dramatically overhauled its sales force in years, wants to tailor those teams better for selling cloud software rather than desktop and server solutions.
“There is an enormous, US$4.5 trillion market opportunity across our commercial and consumer businesses,” according to the e-mail, which was sent by worldwide commercial business chief Judson Althoff, global sales and marketing group leader Jean-Philippe Courtois and Chris Capossela, the company’s chief marketing officer.
The memo didn’t mention any job cuts. People familiar with the plan said last week that the changes will result in some job losses.
Six regions
In the consumer and device sales area, the Redmond, Washington-based company is creating six regions selling products such as Windows software and Surface hardware, Office 365 cloud software for consumers and the Xbox game console. The group will also focus on new areas such as the Internet of things, voice, mixed reality and AI.
Microsoft will track metrics including large companies deploying Windows 10, sales of Windows 10 Pro devices and competition against Google’s Chromebooks and Apple’s iPads.
Microsoft aims to expand its consumer business by creating “desire for the same creativity tools” that people have at work through Surface, Windows devices and Office 365, according to the memo.
“In addition, gaming is growing rapidly across all device types and is evolving to new scenarios like e-sports, game broadcasting and mixed reality content, and we will drive growth in this category as well,” according to the memo. — Reported by Dina Bass, (c) 2017 Bloomberg LP