为什么削减18000个职位可能是微软长久的计划



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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.

Tough as the decision may have been, it might truly be the best thing for the company in the long term.

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.”

为什么削减18000个职位可能是微软长久的计划

微软将在年底削减18000个职位，这是微软14%的劳动力，也是软件主力历史上接近40年来最大规模的一次裁员。

星期四早上，微软CEO纳德拉发布名为“Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture”的备忘录，宣布微软裁员的大多是诺基亚的员工，上个月微软收购了移动电话公司。

据纳德拉声称，这次裁员会促进“简化工作”“整合的协同作用”“战略调整”。但是即使是强大的商业术语也不能掩饰18000人将面临失业的事实。

 
然而，遭受影响最大的还是微软员工和他们的家人，过早的承担起这一轮大规模的裁员意味着微软面临着可怕的麻烦。事实上，艰难的决策可能是在长期上对公司最有利的事
Forrester Research公司的副总裁和首席分析师J.P. Gownder说：“我对这个消息也感到难过和不安，但肯定有合法的商业案例来做”

艰难的决策可能是在长期上对公司最有利的事。

事实是：当微软收购诺基亚和它的25000名员工时，诺基亚就已经在智能手机市场上落后了，被苹果和三星这样的候选人击败了。微软需要的不是诺基亚品牌而是运行在Windows手机的操作系统的控制权，因此来扩大它在市场上的地位。

大部分但不是所有的诺基亚员工都会因为这个计划被批评。根据Gownder说，这很可能是纳德拉所有计划的一部分。“裁员不是纸上谈兵”他说，“这不是无奈的举措

，当它收购了诺基亚，我确信这是计划”

随着轻微的精简机构，纳德拉将会感觉更加适应在智能手机上与苹果和谷歌这样的竞争对手抗衡。不过，即使减少开销，但与其它智能手机制造商的竞争仍是个巨大的任务，目前还不清楚纳德拉是否愿意承担足够的风险来做这件事。例如，计划开发一个诺基亚手机上运行的Android，此举可能会吸引更多的消费者来使用诺基亚的设备，已被搁置。然而，纳德拉是致力于以Windows手机操作系统的主流，Gownder说这是一个重大的挑战，他认为它不会有很大的应用生态系统。“所有这些新的app都是为iPhone和Android开发的，而不是为Windows手机开发的，不管是曾经还是永远”他说，“那是在平台上效能巨大的缺点。”

Gownder警告纳德拉不应该低估削减众多员工在商业上的影响。“我倾向于认为成本依据失业员工拥有的嵌入式知识，你没有意识到你正在解决 ”他说，裁员的增加将会“士气的有形影响” 为了避免灾难性的后果，Gownder说，纳德拉应该清楚，虽然这是一个前所未有的变化，但他不是众人中第一个来的。“我希望这是一个经过深思熟虑的重组，这将是一次改变，所以他们可以去执行”他说，“总是有一个这类动作相关的成本，但企业能生存和继续”