back to article Capita seeks new networking chief: Up for it?

Capita is looking for a new networks chief. fake smile Shiny new Capita boss to UK.gov: I know you are but what am I? READ MORE The company has confirmed that Béatrice Butsana-Sita, formerly managing director at its Networking Solutions division, is no longer with the company. Butsana-Sita joined Capita in 2016 from BT. The …

  1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    The company has a plan to do "fewer things better"

    The problem with that phrase is it can be interpreted in more than one way.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fewer Things Better

      Indeed - take it to the logical extreme and it could be "do nothing really well", or to re-arrange the words slightly, "excellent at nothing".

      1. Giovani Tapini

        Re: Fewer Things Better

        I didn't think it was possible for the company to be better at doing less - that is after all their overall business model.

        doing better, also translates to "enforcing confusing contract wording to be able to get away with more in spite of doing less"

      2. Ben1892

        Re: Fewer Things Better

        You know you're in deep do-do when you are taking your new strategy pretty much verbatim from W1A;

        “The fact is, this is about us identifying what we do best and finding more ways of doing less of it better,” Director of Better, Anna Rampton

        1. Nick Kew
          Angel

          Re: Fewer Things Better

          But they do at least one thing very well indeed.

          They provide commentards and others with a general object of derision. Can be good for letting off steam.

    2. Greg_v

      As a former Capita InfoSec manager I can confirm they are indeed doing a decent job at fewer and fewer things...

      Reading that Capita ITS is handling critical government infrastructure is deeply worrying. I wouldn't trust them to set up a laptop. (and in fact during 3 months of employment they had to rebuild my laptop 5 times, it never worked...)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "a brutal programme of cuts had left staff struggling"

    But that is Crapita's business model. Their growth was fuelled by undercutting honest capitalists below cost, and then attempting to screw profit out of it by screwing the existing workforce.

    Fortunately, it is not sustainable.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: "a brutal programme of cuts had left staff struggling"

      Neither may be the fix. I'd be curious about the state of Capita's network, and scope for cost reductions by consolidation. Especially if there are multiple networks. Downside is to design a 'Capbone' (yes, I know I missed a letter), it would involve extra capex and opex to create it. Plus even as a contactor, it'd require working with their execs.

    2. Mayday
      Coat

      Re: "a brutal programme of cuts had left staff struggling"

      "Capita sources told The Register that a brutal programme of cuts had left staff struggling to maintain SLAs."

      I had to reread. Thought there was an R missing from the first word and an N missing from the 11th.

    3. Greg_v

      Re: "a brutal programme of cuts had left staff struggling"

      I beg to differ, because while they render fewer and poorer services, they do so with tremendous waste and cost to themselves...

      As an InfoSec manager I've personally seen them spend 600,000 GBP to IBM for the monitoring of... ZERO servers!

      Yes, that's correct. You can't begin to understand the level of disfunction required to make that not only possible, but go years unnoticed, and then defended so that it may continue...

  3. DJV Silver badge

    Hey...

    ...who wants to drink from the poisoned chalice? Any takers?

    1. NiceCuppaTea

      Re: Hey...

      If it comes with a 6 figure salary and a 7 figure sign on bonus i will do it (until my purchase of a large house with no mortgage and appropriate acreage is completed)

  4. Giovani Tapini

    No way I would work for somewhere that operates on lowest bid basis

    That is not architecture, it is bodge and run and hope for charging for upgrade projects later.

    In my experience fully outsourcing networks is a sure path to expense and disaster. Its just a question of time...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No way I would work for somewhere that operates on lowest bid basis

      I have just moved to a new job with a company that is insourcing it’s entire network.

      The state of the current platform is astonishing, there are systems referenced which haven’t existed for years, and I found routers in different offices with the same hostname this afternoon...!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Outgoing head congratulated for role in division's transformation

    Capita must be on another planet to congratulate them!

    5 businesses within CNS and they have never been in a worse state, so congratulating them on screwing something up that much is a new twist!

    1. EscapedTheInsanity

      Re: Outgoing head congratulated for role in division's transformation

      Because they gobble up other companies without aligning them.

      In short they foster the bad habits within each company and actively encourage them to play "them vs us" games between the factions so Capita can claim the problems are with a sub-department after the ink drys.

    2. Greg_v

      Re: Outgoing head congratulated for role in division's transformation

      This is the general criteria for promoting management at Capita.

      While at Capita I was told by my client that I was the first to do a commendable job... And they feared (correctly) that I would be fired for it...

  6. adam payne

    Networking Solutions falls under IT and Networks, one of six divisions at Capita. IT and Networks revenue fell 9.3 per cent to £197.6m in the first half of 2018, with profits falling further, down 35.6 per cent to £21.5m.

    That could be one of the reasons Beatrice has moved onto new challenges outside of Capita.

  7. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Addendum

    Total ablations of soul and moral dignity required.

  8. BebopWeBop

    The company has a plan to do "fewer things better".

    A few things better would make a change

  9. Big T

    Useless

    As an ex-Capita employee, made redunant as part of CNS's resource cull earlier this year, I'm glad she's gone.

    Always thought from her weekly "blogs" that she thought she was way to important to deal with day to day empoyees, instead regailing tails of shopping trips to Ocado or Skiing with other company directors.

    And why the hell did she look through my Linked-In profile about a month after I'd left?

    I'm hoping that they'll dissapear at some point, but feel bad for the collegues left behind, and especially thouse who invested lots of their own cash in discounted shares years ago which now are worth 15% of what they paid for.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Useless

        I am also an Ex-Capita employee, and seeing Beatrice in action was horrific, When there were no pay reviews and her weekly blogs kept on about the new £150 milk frother she bought which didn't work so should she return it or throw it, ending with "oh well i will just buy a new one", she and her team were out of touch with everyone. The most horrific bit was the salary she was supposedly on!

        I also agree that there are some fantastic people still there working away who have had to endure her time and the clients should be asking for the evidence what they bought is what they have got, as i bet it inst.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lets make lots of money.....

    I wonder how well the NHS et al run their competitive tender process.

    When I asked Crapita Network Solutions for a 1Gb/s link they quoted far beyond the price we got for competing companies links. From memory it was in the 5XX% markup order of magnitude. I was literally told that we would be paying for upgrades to their core network.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Veal...

    Beatrice used to send a companywide email each week which 'as you can imagine' was the highlight of everyone's week. The only one I remember was her talking about how much she loved Veal and that she couldn't understand why the British had such a problem with it.

    I wrote her a reply, explaining how Veal crates work, which obviously I bottled out of sending.

    The problem was that the place was/is full of people like Beatrice sending pointless emails. Pareto's Law has never been truer than at Capita, prior to an acquisition 20% of the people did 80% of the work, once Capita got hold of a business the 20%ers left and that's how they got where they are today.

    The scary thing is that this division has a contract with National Air Traffic Control...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Veal...

      Beatrice's weekly email was the highlight of my week. Because, it was so badly written, full of awful spelling mistakes and packed with her bragging about how wonderful her and her offspring were. After a couple of Friday lunchtime pints, it would give me a great laugh whilst spurring me on to get that CV sorted so I could leave the company as soon as possible. She inspired me (to leave as soon as possible).

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meg Whitman anyone

    Erm No ? Thought so.

  13. N2
    Trollface

    Fewer things better

    They're good at nothing, apart from large invoices.

  14. jake Silver badge

    "Capita is looking for a new networks chief."

    They can't afford me. There isn't enough money on the planet to convince me to take on that job.

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