After AppDirect Sale, TBI, Shepstone Reckon with Layoffs Fallout
… with the scale and processes required to be a buyer rather than a seller in the long term.
But that didn’t occur.
Investment in People
On one hand, sources said one problem ultimately came down to investment, and much of that investment had to do with people. Although TBI excelled at recruiting talent from outside the channel and outside of telecom, keeping talent proved challenging. The TSD by many accounts was not spending as much on salaries as it needed to keep people with the company long-term.
A 2015 Glassdoor review sums up the mixed bag well:
“While the company does a good job of finding talent, internally, they don’t really do a good job of compensating employees relative to their new positions as they rise. Employees are not making what they deserve relative to like-positions with other employers in the industry,” a former employee wrote.
That being said, TBI did shell out significant dollars to bring on vice presidents in recent years. However, many of those leaders ultimately found themselves impotent to bring innovation. And many of them are no longer working with TBI/AppDirect today.
“Quite a few folks exited from the organization who were hired to make positive changes but ultimately couldn’t control the politics,” one source said.
The politics had much to do with the vacuum of power that existed in Shepstone’s absence. Shepstone had built a successful business, but he also ran other businesses. In addition, he spent a significant time away from work, going on hunting trips abroad.
No one could fault Shepstone for maintaining a healthy work-life balance, but difficulties emerged around who would be manage the company in his absences. With no one specifically hired as a business manager, the de facto power resided in a small handful of senior vice presidents. And although those SVPs’ respective departments reported tight-knit cultures, respectively, sources say they often were misaligned and even competed with one another.
“Geoff was never much involved in the day-to-day. He enabled incredibly bad leadership and wasn’t very secretive about how much he enjoyed the political games internally,” a source said. “It created a feeling that if you weren’t part of the inner circle, regardless of your thoughts, skills and ideas – it wouldn’t matter.”
A Teachable Moment
One source remarked that the public reaction to the TBI layoffs says a lot about the overall personality of the channel. Layoff news hits LinkedIn on what seems to be an hourly basis. So often large vendors – whether publicly traded companies like Salesforce, RingCentral and Intel – or privately traded firms like Talkdesk and SADA – are shedding massive swaths of their workforce. It is no surprise to see activist investors pushing for large vendors to cut people in the name of profit. Some executives, such as Zoom’s Eric Yuan, have even garnered praise for what pundits call well-done layoffs.
But in the smaller world of the technology advisor channel – particularly on the partner side – these moves come with sharper consequences. People comprise the channel, and their bonds to one another run deep. As a result, loyalty and trust remain as precious a currency as ever.
“This entire situation was very disappointing on how it played out. It could have been avoided with clear communication, better leadership and, ultimately, focusing solely on partners,” a former TBI employee said. “Because it wasn’t, it spiraled into a PR disaster. Ultimately, the partners and employees suffer – and that’s the saddest part.”
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