Thanks fellas for your retort, both Lee and Steve.
Being a long term player in the engineering arena, I think we could get into some wild discussion about the demise of the hightech industry as was known in the late 80s and early 90s to what exists now.
Here's my thought on the Reps not employing the capability of the tool and what it means for the primary sales person in the next decade. Do it and improve or get smoked by the efficiency of the internet. Once Internet tracking tools get firmly entrenched and companies become accustomed to that method of transaction, the sales people will merge with marketers. Because at that point the marketers and high-level engineers pounding the turf at the onset of a new product will become the value of the sale. the Net will be the contact point. You'll still need good sales people, people that can sell, but they may be marketers. The salesman who lets the product sell itself will be history. That may be the vision of that VP for his productivity number, you say he ignores. ( I don't know a VP of Engrg that ignores productivity parameters.)
I don't buy the notion that the SFA goes away ( except maybe for the field guy who chooses to ignore it). I saw how the poorly orchestrated design and simulation tools of the 80's became necessity and now dominate the field for any level of productivity. ( imagine your Pentium 3 being designed with simulation, take us to the next century to debug it otherwise). Maybe these cos. don't present good stock investments today, since that did happen with CAE vendors, but I don't think the concept is a farce either.
I might say it is ironic that my best SW stock ( don't have MSFT,SEBL) is a beaten down garbage CAE stock now.
It hasn't broken out yet, but it has risen from the dead. Just hope I don't have wait so long for VNTV.
Thanks again for the opinion, and try not to take my sales naivete as a harsh statement on the profession. I just think the adjustments have to be made or problems will occur. |
