Employees and ex-employees
From Ibmer
Contents |
Evidence of IBM's transfer of jobs from the USA
- 'IBM reduced its American workforce by 31,000 while increasing its Indian staff by 52,000.' E3
Offshore as a vehicle for IBM to replace 'incompetent' employees
- 'First, this has been kept extremely quiet until now. (I'd heard rumblings about this a year ago, but thought it was more "localized" to specific accounts in the outsource services area - didn't connect the dots.) IBM services is having some problems with accounts that were acquired by IBM as outsource contracts, mainly due to the competency of the acquired team - both management and worker-bees. No surprise here: that was why the customers outsourced the services to IBM in the first place - the customer couldn't manage their own infrastructure. IBM had intended to do some serious load-shedding on these accounts anyway, but the scope is really much larger than I expected.E1
- 'Which brings us to part two: there is a serious problem with work ethic in the technology sector. This also covers both sides of the management line, with incompetent managers being just as prevalent as incompetent workers. IBM services has had what is probably a similar exposure as other companies to the problems this causes; however, unlike most other companies, IBM is choosing to do something proactive about it.E1
- 'What do I mean by that last remark? IBM is not just reacting to the incompetence of the acquired worker-bees the way most companies do: IBM appears to be doing one of their every-decade-or-so house-cleanings at all levels. This is going to cut deeply into their middle management ranks, their technical leadership ranks, even into some senior-level positions (although these will probably be couched as "early retirement" or "personal pursuits").' E1
IBM's rationale for moving work offshore
- "A key determiner of where and how work will move around the world is economic - cost and profit potential, but costs aren't the only factor," said Samuel J Palmisano, chairman, president and CEO, IBM Corporation. He said that organisations were also looking for the second force—"expertise", to help them differentiate and innovate.E2
IBM's process for selecting the work to move offshore
IBM has found a way to exclude all matters of ethics and human relationships from the offshore question. It has delegated the decisions to a machine:
- ' IBM, which has invested billions to expand its footprint and its employee count in countries such as India, has applied for a U.S. patent for technology that makes it easier to figure out which jobs to send overseas. The patent application, titled "Outsourcing of Services," describes software that would automate the steps necessary to identify which tasks are best kept in house and which are ideal for outsourcing abroad. E4
Headcount Reduction
- 150,000 lay-offs for IBM Global Services? 'LEAN is about offshoring and outsourcing at a rate never seen before at IBM.' I, Cringely (blog) (May 4th 2007)
Sources:
- E1. The Register (May 2007)
- E2. IBM chief stresses economics, expertise, openness as key to work flow at domain-b.com (May 2007)
- E3. News With Views (October 2007)
- E4. The Journal (October 2007)
