On Wednesday HOB was contacted by…
A very reliable source in the UK who suggested to us that Westlaw in the UK had retrenched their entire International Sales Team.
We contacted Sweet & Maxwell’s pr agency in London and subsequently received an answer from the S&M corporate communications dept Thursday morning UK time saying the following.
We are currently undergoing a review of our sales team which is aimed at ensuring we remain responsive to areas of growing customer demand. This review is part of our normal business planning processes rather than a particular response to the broader economy.
As part of the review, a small number of positions have been restructured, resulting in the creation of some new roles as well as some redundancies.
As always it’s the approach of saying as little as they possibly can. We are somewhat wary of the comment.
This review is part of our normal business planning processes rather than a particular response to the broader economy.
We aren’t sure we quite believe this but let’s wait for the Q1 2009 figures and if their results reflect those of Lexis then we’ll throw away that pinch of salt. They also indicate that the "review" of sales staff is ongoing, so we would imagine the truth sits somewhere between the two versions we’ve received. There will still be a international sales team but we imagine it will be substantially pared back
