economy

The Smart Layoff

Gadi Shamia, , , , , 1 Comment

Today’s economy leads to many layoffs across all sectors. According to TechCrunch’s layoffs Tracker, over 132,000 employees lost their jobs from August 2008 in the tech sector alone. Reductions in force (RIFs) are commonplace now but there are few best practices out there when it comes to doing it right strategically. While HR already mastered the process from their side, executives often fail to creatively think of the best way to reduce the number of employees, without destroying the company.

There is a smarter way, but let’s first understand how it is done today. Continue reading “The Smart Layoff” →

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The Smart Layoff

SaaS at the edge of the enterprise

Gadi Shamia, , , , 2 Comments

SAP, Oracle and Microsoft solutions will not go away anytime soon. While the SaaS discussion is gaining ground in the last months, we still don’t see massive (or even minor) conversion of enterprises from mission critical systems like SAP to SaaS based applications. Netsuite for example, is reported to go after SAP customers in a competitive conversion offer. I doubt that they will get too many real R/3 customers that are fully deployed converting- the only success they may enjoy is from customers that never deployed SAP or subsidiaries of SAP shops that used something else (say MS-Dynamics) and now want a better solution. Continue reading “SaaS at the edge of the enterprise” →

SaaS at the edge of the enterprise

In bad times, lower the risk for your customers

Gadi Shamia, , , , 5 Comments

Just like everyone else, I am spending cycles thinking of the economy. Unlike many others, I don’t think the crisis is one size fits all and winners will emerge alongside the losers.

There is a lot of advice for entrepreneurs and much talk in the VC community but the talk is all focused on lowering costs and not on ways to impact the revenue side, which is as important to survive this downturn. Customers will not stop spending. It never happened and it will never happen. Customers will be simply looking to lower their risk at times like this. Who wants to invest 10M in a new ERP system, when things are uncertain? Continue reading “In bad times, lower the risk for your customers” →

In bad times, lower the risk for your customers

Machine gun approach to the economical crisis

Gadi Shamia, , , , , 1 Comment

There is plenty of good advice out there for start-ups and small and medium businesses (SMBs) and most of it is: slow down, save cash, go back to basics, put on hold expansion plans, be careful- it is dangerous out there. By now, everyone read the Sequoia Capital’s 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom or read the variety of e-mails sent to start-up CEOs by their investors. Today on my way to lunch I caught a glimpse of Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association, talking on NPR and advising small businesses to put growth plans on hold. It is all good advice, but I have an issue with the way it is delivered.  Continue reading “Machine gun approach to the economical crisis” →

Machine gun approach to the economical crisis