Over the last few years Avanade became very bottom line conscience. Culminating, most recently, in the layoff of more than 200 professional across the U.S. from every practice and at every level. Itâ??s quite evident that the layoffs were numbers driven based on a limited view of the business as I am aware that once the broader organization became aware of exactly who was laid off they quickly scrambled to rehire or contract with some of those who were let go as there were now large gaps in capabilities that needed to be filled to support new business.
Sadly, even after the 8.14 layoffs Avanade continued to lay off more consultants in a onesy twosy manor as they moved to the new Customer Care Organization structure. This action continues to erode the morale of the company and many talented people are already exploring other opportunities.
Additionally, Avanade became very risk adverse and lost a lot of its agility. Accenture senior executives were astounded at the rigors Avanade would go through to review and approve the smallest of deals. Avanade had definitely started to mix sales with delivery and it hurt the organization. They have definitely fallen to the Microsoft side of risk aversion scale and that became evident to their customers/prospects as well. Part of this is due to the Delivery organizations involvement in Sales.
Avanade tends to be buddies network where if you are part of the in crowd then you don't need to follow process or procedure. I have seen several people get promoted without the proper documentation. Furthermore, I've seen senior management negatively impact the careers of many talented individuals solely based on personalities. The organization tends to be passive/aggressive and most comfortable in decision by committee so as to limit the risk to the individual. This makes for extremely arduous and lengthy decision cycles at all levels.
Finally, it has been a rumor for years that Accenture would fully absorb Avanade and now it looks more imminent than ever. Accenture told Avanade c-level execs to get bigger or get out and Avanade has responded by trying to build their direct (non-ACN or MS channel) business. A smart move by Accenture since you would want to acquire new customers by absorbing Avanade. The new org structure is very similar to Accenture's and Avanade is already on Accenture's SAP system. So the writing is on the wall and the outcome for the professionals at Avanade is uncertain.
And, I don't believe that it was in the best interest of company morale that the Central Region GM took delivery of a new Maserati in the face of 2009's layoffs, salaries freezes and cancelled bonuses.
