Microsoft is shaking up its sales and support groups with FY21 kickoff

Microsoft’s 2021 fiscal year (FY21) began on July 1, and with it the company is shifting the structure of its “Customer Success” unit. According to a report by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is looking to “improve customer use and engagement” of its services by clarifying support roles and tailoring support plans.

Other changes are afoot as well, including renaming various titles and roles. From ZDNet:

As it has been doing with a lot of its products and services lately, Microsoft also will be changing a number of its employees titles and roles as part of the latest sales moves. Technical Account Managers (TAMs) are being renamed “CSAMs,” or “Customer Success Account Managers,” and will report into the Customer Success Unit. Premier Field Engineers will now be known as “Customer Engineers.”

Beyond these shifts, Foley reports that Microsoft has created a new “Microsoft Consulting” group. Microsoft declined to comment on details of this unit, but, as ZDNet points out, Microsoft already does plenty of consulting work.

This reorganization is the latest in what is an annual trend for Microsoft at the start of new fiscal years. Some of these shakeups have been larger than others. Most notably, Microsoft announced plans in 2014 to cut 18,000 jobs over the course of the following year. Most of those job losses were attributed to Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services devision.

Much smaller rounds of layoffs occurred in subsequent years around the start of each fiscal year. Notably, Foley says that she hasn’t heard of any plans for big layoffs this year, though smaller rounds could occur “due to the usual churn.”