The Territory sales organization that Cognex created in 2022 to try and win market share with the bottom 50% of the market (smaller business) was (and is) aggressively rushed without data behind it to make financial and hiring decisions.
Huge amounts of college graduates onboarded with an expectation they could meet their quotas.
Commission plans were not disclosed until 5 weeks into Q1, and the quotas were staggeringly high compared to the previous year's bookings data (2.5x quota growth in territories that have been established for 15 years).
And then they were retracted because the numbers listed on them were "incorrect." They were re-released with 5 weeks left in Q1 with even higher attainment numbers, with a heavy focus on "performance metrics" (absurd number for quantity of meetings attained, which just results in garbage meetings to hit the number rather than a focus on quality).
How does a sales org not have a commission plan for its members laid out with 5 weeks left until they are to be graded on said performance?
Frankly, it seems like some promises were made at the board of executives level that this new sales org was going to produce much more revenue than it actually is, and the top level execs are scrambling to squeeze something out of it by setting unattainable quotas.
I would not be surprised if less than 5% of the org makes quota, and that sets a horrible expectation for its future success.
Cognex was not like this even 2 years ago. It will be interesting to see the next few years. I really hope improvements can be made because Cognex has a great history and reputation and they need to preserve that.
