Microsoft To Restructure Marketing Department
By Seattle Business Magazine January 12, 2012
Recently appointed Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela is restructuring Microsot’s marketing operations in hopes of making the company leaner and meaner, according to Bloomberg News. Marketing staff with technical skills will be moved to engineering groups while as many as several hundred staff could be cut.
Microsoft spent nearly $14 billion on sales and marketing in the last fiscal year, devoting 25,000 of its 90,000 employees to the task. Yet, in recent years, Microsoft has developed a reputation for being stunningly ineffective in its marketing. The company may have trouble supporting such poor returns on its marketing dollars at a time when it must plow huge sums into expanding share in such strategic sectors as search, cloud computing and mobile phones.
Microsoft has not confirmed the reports of a restructuring, but media reports suggest an announcement could come within the next month.