back to article 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 …

  1. SoloSK71

    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 ...

    1. Hans 1

      They have to pay the shareholders somehow, right ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      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.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        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.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £14k for 20 years service?

    Ouch, that's a bit of slap in the face.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      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.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £14k for 20 years service?

      up to.

      A bit like broadband.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      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.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: £14k for 20 years service?

        "they will carve off the lowest rated from the annual performance ratings."

        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.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          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 :)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: £14k for 20 years service?

          They've been getting around that for years.

    4. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: £14k for 20 years service?

      Lucky to get that these days.

      1. scotposter

        Re: £14k for 20 years service?

        Not true, that's the statutory minimum. Maxed at £475 per week, I'd expect a lot in the IT industry will earn more than that.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          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.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £14k for 20 years service?

      They are offering the statutory minimum only. That's a first. Even for involuntary it's always been above the statutory minimum.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    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)

    1. Cynical Observer

      Consultation - not Negotiation

      As the title says - All to often the employee representatives are there to act solely as a conduit for information between those at risk and management. It's not about haggling over terms.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Consultation - not Negotiation

        Not even that. They're there because there's a legal requirement for them to be there. They don't actually do anything useful or helpful.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Impressive....

      Summed up nicely, with committee sworn to secrecy too. It's a legal requirement to have the "consultation".

  4. Ian Michael Gumby

    Lee Conrad?

    I thought the Alliance @IBM went tits up?

  5. Down not across

    Annual improvement on price and service

    Sizable reduction in force (and effect on morale from involuntary redundancy) is really likely to improve on service then?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Annual improvement on price and service

      One of the few times the sarcasm tag isnt needed.

      Up voted.

  6. ecofeco Silver badge

    The silver lining?

    They're better off leaving IBM.

  7. 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.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ow at £14k for 20 years of service.

    It really is a pretty crap deal!

  9. 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.

    1. M.Zaccone
      Paris Hilton

      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.

      1. 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.

        1. 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.

          1. 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.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not just GTS, every unit on the UK is getting shot of people. And it's compulsory, there is no voluntary package.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      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?

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Howard Hanek
    Happy

    A Modest Proposal

    Drop the 'B' in the logo. That should cut costs by a third and also indicate they're no longer in 'Business'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A Modest Proposal

      They'd have to drop the M too. Unless that now stands for "management"

  13. 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?

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