Marc Benioff, co-chief govt officer of Salesforce.com Inc., between panel periods on day two of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 24, 2022.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s co-founder and shortly to be sole CEO, indicated in an all-hands assembly on Thursday that extra downsizing might be coming, in accordance with folks with information of the matter.
The digital assembly got here a day after Salesforce introduced that it was chopping 10% of jobs, amounting to over 7,000 positions. Hours later, Amazon mentioned it could decrease headcount by 18,000. Tech corporations are shrinking their workforce for the primary time in years as they reckon with slowing development, rising rates of interest and a possible recession.
Benioff expressed issues about productiveness in elements of the gross sales group. About half of Salesforce account executives introduced in additional than 95% of offers, he instructed the staff, in accordance with two individuals who attended by video. The assembly had been scheduled for an hour however ran for over two hours, one other particular person mentioned.
One of the attendees instructed CNBC that Benioff mentioned the dearth of productiveness was largely from new account executives.
Fortune reported earlier on the assembly.
During the pandemic and within the years main as much as it, Salesforce expanded quickly as cloud adoption soared. The firm fueled its development partly by way of giant acquisitions reminiscent of Slack and Tableau.
Now Salesforce is retrenching as income development is slowing and because it faces an activist investor involved about working leverage. In November, co-CEO Bret Taylor, who was seen as Benioff’s inheritor obvious, introduced his shock departure after a yr sharing the highest job. He’s slated to go away on the finish of January.
Last month, Benioff posted a Slack message to all workers asking for methods to make new staffers extra productive. During Thursday’s assembly, Benioff expressed frustration about media stories that surfaced concerning his feedback.
“One of our core values is trust,” Benioff mentioned, in accordance with one of many attendees.
The particular person mentioned Benioff took a very long time to reply to a solution about what Salesforce’s future holds.
Salesforce did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
WATCH: Jim Cramer says extra tech layoffs are coming after Salesforce cuts 10% of its headcount