Is the sal...

Question

Is the sales org / leadership / culture are Red Hat entirely separated from the IBM mothership? or is it getting blended together at this point?

Current Employee · Accepted Answer

It is starting to become more blended. Each territory/vertical is almost being forced to collaborate with their respective IBM counterparts and IBM is now holding a RH quota.

Current Employee · Answer

RH CEO takes orders directly from the CEO of IBM, the current RH CEO is a tech leader not a business leader and it shows up and down throughout the sales org, also, drastically cut incentives for consulting resulting in a push towards IBM consulting and leadership.
Mandatory joint sales plans

Former Employee · Answer

It’s been blended for over 12 months and IBM is putting extreme pressure on all business units to obtain goals that are often unrealistic. The old RH way and culture is no longer a thing.

Current Employee · Answer

IBM is now infiltrating Red Hat and culture is changing into more of a sales organization. Red Hat historically had an amazing culture and still does in some respects, but leadership is cracking down and the IBM musical chairs & PIPs are now on everyone's mind.

Former Employee · Answer

-IBM is taking over, don't let any management dell you differently during your interview process. Couple examples are below.

1. Layoffs in early 2022. Red Hat has delivered 15% + growth for IBM since IBM bought Red Hat. As of Q4 in 2022 that number is down to only 8%. This caused lay offs as well as restructuring of sales teams at Red Hat. On top of this, next to no one is achieving quota due to unrealistic numbers and an incredible amount of pressure to deliver unreasonable expectations.
2. IBM is starting to take products from Red Hat. In October 2022, IBM sent out an email saying they are taking a certain product away starting in January 2023. At that point no Red Hat rep will get paid on that product, very disappointing considering people are in the middle of long deal cycles that are now a complete waste of time.

-Please beware if interviewing! Red Hat has great products but that's about the extent of it. The company and products will be fully blended into IBM within the next 3 years so be ready to work for big blue if you're interviewing with Red Hat!

Former Employee · Answer

It has blended more and more each year since the acquisition. It seems upper leadership in sales all have IBM roles in their resume.

Products are moving to IBM, and sales accounts are moving to IBM. I've seen better and worse culture on both sides. Culture comes down to management and trust.

Current Employee · Answer

IBM taking over. Global sales leader is now an IBMer. 28y at IBM. In daily activities no pressure or influence yet, but it will come. I expect alignment to IBM sales org to get these merged at one point in time. My guess is as from 1st of Jan 2025.

Current Employee · Answer

Since this question was posted, there's been a noticeable uptick in RH performance, and it's changed the dynamic a bit, but overall the expectation is that we help our IBM counterparts with their selling.  The actual day-to-day really depends on who is the relationship leader within accounts: my territory has a very poor relationship with IBM, so we get to call the shots.  Other accounts are much more integrated into the IBM experience.

AI is the name of the game in 2025, but it does not necessarily mean RH folks are selling Watson to their customers.  We're expected to drive different opportunities than the IBM folks work on.

Current Employee · Answer

The leadership and culture has not been over taken at all, but IBM has started reaching down into our territories/accounts/products. So IBM is affecting our ability to sell, but the management and culture is still very much Red Hat run

Current Employee · Answer

Completely separate.

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Anonymous Q&A

Is the sales org / leadership / culture are Red Hat entirely separated from the IBM mothership? or is it getting blended together at this point?