UPDATED 19:22 EDT / DECEMBER 19 2023

CLOUD

Report: AWS to reorganize sales teams amid slowing cloud revenue growth

Amazon Web Services Inc. is planning a major overhaul of its 60,000-strong sales team, in order to address problems as rivals such as Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC make some headway in the global cloud computing market.

That’s according to a report today in The Information, which said the Amazon.com Inc. cloud unit’s sales and marketing chief Matt Garman is planning to consolidate various sales teams that have developed “conflicting sales strategies” within the company. The plan also calls for changes in how AWS assigns its technical staff to help customers, the report said. It comes after a number of AWS clients expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s existing practices.

Although AWS remains by far and away the most dominant player in the cloud computing infrastructure-as-a-service market, the company has seen slowing growth. Moreover, it has reportedly failed to meet its internal growth targets at a time when the industry is rapidly transitioning to expand its focus on artificial intelligence.

A report by Business Insider last month claimed that AWS is falling short of its sales goals in two key segments – its startups and small-business divisions – and will likely miss its targets in those segments in 2023.

Moreover, AWS public disclosures show that it’s unable to match the growth displayed by its two main rivals in the cloud, Microsoft and Google, though it’s still much larger at least in the infrastructure segment of the market and continues to grow that business much more in terms of absolute revenue.

Apples-to-apples comparisons are tricky because all three companies report their cloud numbers differently, but it’s clear that AWS is facing some challenges. In its most recent earnings call, AWS revealed that its cloud revenue had grown by 12% in its fiscal third quarter. However, Microsoft reported that its cloud business grew by 29% year-over-year, while Google Cloud’s 22% growth rate also outpaced Amazon’s.

A spokesperson for AWS told SiliconANGLE that the company disputes the claims that the company isn’t growing as fast as its rivals.

“AWS continues to be the significant leader in cloud infrastructure in customers, revenue, security, operational performance and partner ecosystem, and we believe that AWS had the largest absolute growth in revenue of any cloud provider last quarter at $919 million,” the spokesperson said. “Others might report a larger percentage of growth, but they’re working from a considerably smaller base. It’s also important to note that not everyone breaks out their cloud numbers as transparently as AWS does, so it’s impossible to compare apples to apples.”

Some of AWS best-known execs, including former senior vice president Charlie Bell, marketing chief Rachel Thornton and data center vice president Chris Vonderhaar, have quit the company in the last couple of years, and the rate at which lower level managers are leaving has also reportedly increased.

AWS’s spokesperson said The Information’s report concerns an organizational change that was first announced by Garman in November and reported by GeekWire. At the time, Garman wrote in an internal memo distributed to employees that the company will reorganize its Sales, Marketing and Global Services group in order to “lay the foundation for accelerated customer impact and growth in the years ahead.”

The goal of the reorganization is to improve customer experiences by “better aligning our customer-facing teams, resulting in increased agility, scale, and efficiency,” Garman wrote.

Image: AWS

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