While I get that this is specific to the UK, IBM seems to do this reliably every six months for about the past 14 years for this sector, worldwide ...
IBM UK puts 1,352 Global Tech Services heads 'at risk'
IBM is to cut 185 jobs in its Global Technology Services division in the UK – the latest swing of its corporate axe over the last 24 months. The company started the 45-day redundancy notice period with GTS staff on 15 February after forming a Employee Consultation Committee earlier this month, as we revealed. According to the …
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Monday 22nd February 2016 16:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not just IBM .. all the IT outsourcers have been at this 'Transformational Journey' for the last 10+ years. Amazon and Azure have the infrastructure outsourcing somewhat sewn up, so staying in hosting is probably a mug's game. The 'new' concept is 'partnering' with those guys and act as a 'Smart Integrator' between the IaaS providers and the customers but eventually even this 'middleman' will get disintermediated.
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Monday 22nd February 2016 16:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Agree, I think Azure and AWS (probably swinging more to Azure) is taking over infrastructure outsourcing. There will naturally be contracts for mainframe outsourcing, etc which are out of scope for the cloud providers, but the lion's share will probably be going their way in coming years. I think IBM sees this coming. IBM has another issue in the SO space, a more immediate issue, which is that the Indian outsourcers (TCS, Infosys, Wipro... mainly TCS) are winning the large contracts from the American outsourcers. Worst of both worlds. It looks like short term they face intense pricing pressure from the Indian firms and long term this is all going to the big data center in the sky anyway. There are rumors that IBM is trying to sell a large portion of their services division to TCS. The SOP for IBM, sell it off while there is still some value and people want to buy. They are probably running into trouble with Dell in that market as Dell is trying, desparately, to sell Perot Systems to someone to fund a portion of their EMC buy.
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Monday 22nd February 2016 16:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: £14k for 20 years service?
Better than state side, one month severance regardless of your tenure. IBM just changed their severance terms... which probably means they are in the process of some large layoffs and the cost of paying the thousands of employees severance based on tenure would be too costly.... "Too costly" meaning they could easily afford it, but don't feel like it.
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Monday 22nd February 2016 20:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: £14k for 20 years service?
And then look at £12k max for a 29 year vet. He certainly doesn't want to leave.
If they don't get enough volunteers, they will carve off the lowest rated from the annual performance ratings.
Being that there is a whole swathe of middle management that wouldn't be missed, they need to look half way up the Banding totem.
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Monday 22nd February 2016 23:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: £14k for 20 years service?
"Not in the UK they won't. For redundancy terms to be legal, it has to be the post that is redundant, not the person."
<smirk> Yeah ... I played that 'game' some years ago !!!
Amazing how quickly a 'Post' can be made redundant ..... and how quickly after the 'cull' a 'new' Post is available with a 'new' title and very familiar requirements etc.
Best of luck fighting that one when you are on the outside.
It was, of course, a 'Non-UK/EU Company' with a 'fondness for Hershey' & a complete disdain for UK/EU Employment laws with a HR/Legal team ready to explain away any discrepancies, with legal threats if necessary.
(read as 'Deep pockets and reputation to protect.')
AC for obvious reasons :)
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Friday 4th March 2016 14:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: £14k for 20 years service?
In previous IBM redundancies in the UK the package has varied by division and year, but for example: two weeks pay for every year of service up to a maxmum of 13 years (so, max 6 months pay for anyone with >13 years in the madhouse).
The statutory minimums are higher for years worked where the employee was over 41 years old than for those from 22-40 years old (https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay).
UK tax doesn't apply to redundancy payments unless they are over £30K, which a lot of people would go over in previous rounds of this sort of stuff, because it was actually fairly generous.
It's harsh this time by comparison.
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Monday 22nd February 2016 20:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Impressive....
...that they appear to have formed a Staff Consultative Committee solely for the purposes of consulting said staff on the sackings. Presumably they'll be able to disband the committee immediately the consultation period ends.
Imagine the agenda:
IBM UK Staff Consultative Committee Inaugural Meeting
Agenda
1. Introduction and apologies
2. Planned sackings
3. NOB (like AOB, except we've decided there is no other business)
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 02:13 GMT a_yank_lurker
Deja Vu all over again
As Yogi Berra said this "deja vu all over again". It seems like I've Been Moved goes through a massive reorganization every 20 years or so much like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Borrowing from Deming, has the mismanagement at Isty Bitsy Morons ever considered they are the primary problem to improved financials? I doubt the thought will ever cross their very feeble minds.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 09:51 GMT HmmmYes
IBM has been digging its grave for a number of years now.
More than ever, large companies need what IBM pre -1994 did - a steady, full service IT company that delivered.
What companies have is IBM and other outsources who try and write clever SLA which extract as much money in as short amount of time, blowing any chance for repeat business.
I can see two major failures.
One, not giving up low-level hardware soon enough and moving to software-only.
Sure, keep the big iron but they never had the margins to run with Dell.
Just buy the hadrware of someone dumb enough to compete on price and put all the value in the software.
Two, playing the EPS game.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 13:36 GMT M.Zaccone
The customers might need that but they don't want to pay for it....
"More than ever, large companies need what IBM pre -1994 did - a steady, full service IT company that delivered.
What companies have is IBM and other outsources who try and write clever SLA which extract as much money in as short amount of time, blowing any chance for repeat business."
You are right. The problem is that the customer is the IT director and the Board. They're only going be there two to four years before moving onto their next victim. They aren't looking for the best value, they want the best price, and they want that price to go down year on year. Who cares if the service gets worse and worse. And then in a few years , the client will renew and will play you off against the even cheaper service companies. There is very little in the way of repeat business. The "good" IBM is gone and wouldn't get the business in the modern world with its race to the absolute bottom. It is a shitty situation.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 14:04 GMT HmmmYes
Re: The customers might need that but they don't want to pay for it....
It is a shitty situation - for both IBM and the company.
The problem for both is that the core of most companies is software and the companies own data.
Any company, large or small, can only drop a bollox or two with it software. Start constantly dropping bolloxes and the company fails.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 14:36 GMT future research
Re: The customers might need that but they don't want to pay for it....
This is why the "small" startup companies can succeed. The big incumbent might have all the advantages on paper like the customer and the data, but the small start ups that do the IT in house have the "agile" capability to deliver and win all those customers.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 14:54 GMT HmmmYes
Re: The customers might need that but they don't want to pay for it....
I'd hesitate on using 'agile' - with all that word involves these.
But, yes, big companies seem to have got into the state where they are paying people $$$$$$ to go around penny pinching and nickel diving rather than growing new business.
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Tuesday 23rd February 2016 13:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Glad I got out when I did. There's two courses of action if you're at IBM
1. Get out
2. Make sure your job title has Cloud, Mobile, Analytics or the other one in it.
IBM is intent on destroying its business and reputation. The so-called growth areas are being tackled purely by buying other companies, and IBM's had such a great record with those, hasn't it?
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Thursday 3rd March 2016 05:28 GMT gmathol
In many countries IBM has the policy to sack the tech population after 5 year and block them from applying for another 3 years, in order to keep the tech scene alive and also keeping the edge over its competitors.
I found it not so bad to work for IBM - I was working as an independent consultant in many other places why I had one of those IBM contracts and they paid me almost a 100.000 USD a year during this years and yeas I was called 3 or 5 times at max to help them out with minor things, while I was working for other customers.
Not a bad deal?