Microsoft is gearing up to lay off thousands of employees worldwide in order to reorganize its sales force, reported TechCrunch.
As per the publication, a source with knowledge of the aforementioned plan of the company informed them that the U.S. firm would downsize its staffs by "thousands" across the world. The restructuring will also include an organizational merger of its enterprise customer unit with its one or more SME-focused divisions. Reportedly, the changes will be announced this coming week.
According to TechCrunch's report, Microsoft has declined to comment on the topic.
Earlier this weekend other news publications - Puget Sound Business Journal, Bloomberg and The Seattle Times – also reported 'major' layoffs by Microsoft related to a move that's aimed at increasing the emphasis on cloud services within the company's sales teams worldwide. Bloomberg went on to say that the downsizing would be "some of the most significant in the sales force in years."
This move looks to be a result of the changed leadership. Last year executives Judson Althoff and Jean-Philippe Courtois took charge of Microsoft's sales and marketing divisions following the exit of long-serving COO Kevin Turner.
Althoff has already publicly criticized the previous sales approaches of the company and he is also keen on making Azure the centre of focus.
Last year, at the end of Microsoft's fiscal year in July, the company had announced job cut of its 2,850 employees, including 900 from the sales group, whereas, just two months before that it had announced that 1,850 staffs will be released from their duties from the smartphone divisions, reported The Seattle Times.
In July 2015, Microsoft sacked 7,800 employees and wrote down $7.6 billion of its Nokia acquisition.
So, if history repeats itself, the time looks apt for the company to sack its employees as, in the recent years, Microsoft has been consistent in laying off a huge chunk of its employees during this time of the year.
