Sunnier days in sales?
In December, Gartner Inc. employees were treated to the spectacle of a panel truck looping by the windows of their Stamford offices, emblazoned with a solicitation to submit job applications to join rival Datamonitor Group.
As it turns out, the Gartner crowd may have been more appreciative of the visit in the first half of 2009, when their jobs and those of their colleagues were under review. As it stands now, the Datamonitor offer may have come too late.
After cutting more than 120 jobs last year, Gartner plans to hire this year, particularly to staff up its sales force in anticipation of increased spending by the companies that use Gartner forecasts on information technology trends. That has the company touting junkets, of all things, for top-performing salespeople on that expectation.
Like many companies, Gartner reacted swiftly to the economic crisis last year, cutting jobs amid uncertainty over the depth and length of the recession. As the economy springs back, Gartner now hopes to capitalize on its trim new profile by avoiding bloat in its payroll even as revenues bounce back.
Throughout Fairfield County during earnings season, it was a familiar refrain voiced by corporations. At the same time, however, Gartner and others noted that sales is one area where hiring is likely to pick up most readily, with companies needing account managers to go get the contracts.
“We certainly took actions during 2009, some of which are sustainable; some of which over time will have to come back into the business,” said Chris Lafond, chief financial officer of Gartner, in a conference call with investment analysts. “One of the key investments that is going to come back into the business that we talked about is sales expansion ”¦ That is probably the single biggest place that we are making investments this year, as we sit here today.”
That is the case even as Gartner absorbs supply-chain research firm AMR Research and an IT research firm called the Burton Group, which Gartner CEO Gene Hall said will provide new services for Gartner to funnel through its global sales force.
Hall did not rule out other deals, as well.
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“It took us four years ”¦ to find one (acquisition),” Hall said. “The second (deal) ”“ we found it a week later.”
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For now, Hall and LaFond are focused on maintaining their prized employees even as resumed growth will in time bring back the specter of other employers looking to cherry-pick top performers.
In response to a question on a recent conference call, Hall acknowledged that Gartner had somewhat higher turnover among its sales staff in the fourth quarter, without attributing it to any one reason.
“Any normal sales organization has 10 to 20 percent turnover,” Hall said. “I think (hiring) will be spread through the year.”
Even as it does so, Gartner must remain mindful of a commitment it reached with the state last year to receive state aid in exchange for keeping its headquarters in Fairfield County while adding jobs over the long run. As of a year ago, Gartner had 860 workers in Fairfield County when it committed to boosting its presence here by another 300 people within five years.
In a video on its website, the company highlights sales jobs opportunities at an office it has in Fort Myers, Fla., with account managers touting the company”™s opportunities, including one who learned the ropes in Fort Myers and who is now based in Stamford.
The tail end of the video highlights Gartner”™s “winner”™s circle” for top-performing associates, featuring all-expenses-paid retreats to locales like Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Kauai, and New Zealand.
If it has seemed like an eternity since salespeople could dream of hitting a number that would get them a vacation to an exotic resort; perhaps those days are on the horizon once more.
“The tide goes in; the tide goes out,” said Jack Condlin, CEO of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce, reflecting on the recession”™s toll on businesses entering 2010. “It just went out a long way this time.”