In the latest executive shuffle as vendor Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) continues its efforts to reorganize and get back to its networking roots, The VAR Guy reports that partners will be welcoming a familiar face as the new Americas channel chief.
Wendy Bahr will be familiar to Cisco’s Canadian partners as the head of the vendor’s U.S. and Canadian channel business from 2008 through 2010 before being promoted into a business transformation role, so the transition from Jim Sherriff, who will take another role with Cisco, should be realitively seamless.
It is more change though from a vendor that has seen much of it recently, as CEO John Chambers attempts to improve earnings and refocus the company on its core networking business. Layoffs of 6,500 people worldwide were announced in July of 2011 as part of a plan to reduce operating expenses by $1 billion anually, and a further 1,300 layoffs, amounting to two per cent of the remaining global workforce, were announced last month. Cisco also killed its Cius tablet in May, consigning the business-focus Android tablet to the same fate as its abandoned Flip camera line.
With all the change partners have been having to deal with, the return of a familiar face in Bahr may prove a blessing.
