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Why Cutting 18,000 Jobs Was Likely Microsoft’s Plan All Along
Microsoft will slash up to 18,000 jobs by the end of the year. That’s 14 percent of the company’s workforce, and it amounts to the largest round of layoffs in the nearly 40 year history of the software kingpin.
On Thursday morning, with an email euphemistically titled “Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture,” CEO Satya Nadella announced that the bulk of the cuts would affect employees working for Nokia, the mobile phone company Microsoft acquired last September. According to Nadella, these cuts would encourage “work simplification,” “integration synergies,” and “strategic alignment.” But even the heavy-handed business jargon couldn’t mask the simple fact that 18,000 jobs is a hell of a lot of jobs to lose.
And yet, tragic as these deep cuts will be for Microsoft employees and their families, it may be premature to assume this massive round of layoffs means Microsoft is in dire trouble. In fact, tough as the decision may have been, it might be the best thing for the company in the long term. “I find myself saddened and disturbed at the news, but there are definitely legitimate business cases to do it,” says J.P. Gownder, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
The fact is: when Microsoft acquired Nokia and its 25,000 employees, Nokia had already fallen far behind in the smartphone market, beat out by frontrunners like Apple and Samsung. What Microsoft needed was not the Nokia brand, but greater control over phones running its Windows Phone operating system, so it could work to further expand its place in the market.
Some, but not all of Nokia’s employees, would be critical to that goal, and according to Gownder, this restructuring was likely part of Nadella’s plans all along. “A lot of what’s going on is eliminating what are, on paper, redundancies,” he says. “It’s not a willy nilly thing. I’m sure when they bought Nokia, this was the plan.”
With a slightly leaner organization, Nadella now feels Microsoft will be better suited to compete with the likes of Apple and Google in the smartphone space. Still, even with reduced overhead, Microsoft has a huge task ahead of it to truly compete with other smartphone-makers, and it’s unclear whether Nadella is willing to take enough risks to make that happen. For instance, plans to develop a Nokia phone that runs on Android, a move that might have attracted more consumers to Nokia’s devices, have been shelved. Instead, Nadella is committed to taking the Windows Phone operating system mainstream, which Gownder says is a major challenge, considering it doesn’t have much of an app ecosystem. “All these new apps come out for iPhone and Android, and they don’t come to Windows Phone, in some cases, ever,” he says. “That’s a huge demerit in the efficacy of the platform.”
Gownder also warns that Nadella shouldn’t underestimate the business cost of cutting so many employees. “I do tend to think this will have costs in terms of losing people who have embedded knowledge you don’t realize you’re getting rid of,” he says, adding that the layoffs will have “tangible affects on morale.” To avoid a disastrous fallout, Gownder says, Nadella ought to make it clear that though this is an unprecedented change, it is not just the first of many to come. “My hope is that this is a carefully thought out restructuring, and this will be a one-time change, so they can go and execute,” he says. “There’s always a cost associated with these kinds of moves, but companies can survive and move on.”
爲什麼削減18000個職位可能是微軟長久的計劃
微軟將在年底削減18000個職位，這是微軟14%的勞動力，也是軟件主力歷史上接近40年來最大規模的一次裁員。
星期四早上，微軟CEO納德拉發佈名爲“Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture”的備忘錄，宣佈微軟裁員的大多是諾基亞的員工，上個月微軟收購了移動電話公司。
據納德拉聲稱，這次裁員會促進“簡化工作”“整合的協同作用”“戰略調整”。但是即使是強大的商業術語也不能掩飾18000人將面臨失業的事實。
然而，遭受影響最大的還是微軟員工和他們的家人，過早的承擔起這一輪大規模的裁員意味着微軟面臨着可怕的麻煩。事實上，艱難的決策可能是在長期上對公司最有利的事
Forrester Research公司的副總裁和首席分析師J.P. Gownder說：“我對這個消息也感到難過和不安，但肯定有合法的商業案例來做”
艱難的決策可能是在長期上對公司最有利的事。
事實是：當微軟收購諾基亞和它的25000名員工時，諾基亞就已經在智能手機市場上落後了，被蘋果和三星這樣的候選人擊敗了。微軟需要的不是諾基亞品牌而是運行在Windows手機的操作系統的控制權，因此來擴大它在市場上的地位。
大部分但不是所有的諾基亞員工都會因爲這個計劃被批評。根據Gownder說，這很可能是納德拉所有計劃的一部分。“裁員不是紙上談兵”他說，“這不是無奈的舉措
，當它收購了諾基亞，我確信這是計劃”
隨着輕微的精簡機構，納德拉將會感覺更加適應在智能手機上與蘋果和谷歌這樣的競爭對手抗衡。不過，即使減少開銷，但與其它智能手機製造商的競爭仍是個巨大的任務，目前還不清楚納德拉是否願意承擔足夠的風險來做這件事。例如，計劃開發一個諾基亞手機上運行的Android，此舉可能會吸引更多的消費者來使用諾基亞的設備，已被擱置。然而，納德拉是致力於以Windows手機操作系統的主流，Gownder說這是一個重大的挑戰，他認爲它不會有很大的應用生態系統。“所有這些新的app都是爲iPhone和Android開發的，而不是爲Windows手機開發的，不管是曾經還是永遠”他說，“那是在平臺上效能巨大的缺點。”
Gownder警告納德拉不應該低估削減衆多員工在商業上的影響。“我傾向於認爲成本依據失業員工擁有的嵌入式知識，你沒有意識到你正在解決 ”他說，裁員的增加將會“士氣的有形影響” 爲了避免災難性的後果，Gownder說，納德拉應該清楚，雖然這是一個前所未有的變化，但他不是衆人中第一個來的。“我希望這是一個經過深思熟慮的重組，這將是一次改變，所以他們可以去執行”他說，“總是有一個這類動作相關的成本，但企業能生存和繼續”
