Mr. Fun,
There's a reason that LU has four times the # of sales reps and system engineers... Their sales model is more traditional in that sense; the sales reps and engineers take a call, they talk to a customer to find out what they want, they enter an order, the equipment gets shipped. That's the way that they've always done business, and that's the way RBOC engineers are used to.
Now, Cisco, on the other hand, currently uses a completely different model. I forget the %, but a high, high, percentage of orders come in through CCO (Cisco Connection Online). A network engineer logs on to CCO, looks for the equipment he wants, configures the options that he wants, and places an order, right there, on the web. If he has a question, the majority of the specs are online, for him to peruse, also. (They are actually quite easy to find info in, if you've ever tried them). The order gets placed, it goes directly to Cisco manufacturing, and, boom! The customer gets his equipment with practically zero overhead. That's why Cisco's sales force is so much smaller than Lucent's.
The question that remains to be answered, is: Will traditional carrier customers want to buy equipment in this matter? I don't know the answer. If yes, then, Lucent better get on board and get their web ordering system in place. If no, then Cisco better hire a lot more sales reps.
Jay |
