#strategy

Thoughts? https://medium.com/@gib.bassett/alteryx-after-private-equity-customers-shouldnt-panic-but-they-shouldn-t-be-passive-18744cbfef67

Performance gap is widening.

Investors don’t see value in the integrated strategy; reason: there is not an investor base for such a company. You have the majors and then focused companies in refining and midstream. No one buys PSX unless they have to. If you want Refining exposure you buy VLO or even PBF; midstream, you buy EPC or TRGP. We are ruled by index buyers.

We will never outperform the sum of the parts.

I think AT&T is looking at WFH completely backwards. Instead of fighting it, why not use it as a competitive advantage?

Why limit hiring to a few expensive hub cities when you could recruit the best talent anywhere in the country? Why spend billions on office space and new buildings when that money could be invested in the network, new technology, or staying ahead of the competition?

It also solves a huge problem for younger employees. Not everyone can afford to live near Dallas, Atlanta, or the other hub locations anymore. Housing prices have exploded. WFH gives people the chance to earn a good salary while living somewhere they can actually afford to buy a home and build a life.

Those salaries don’t disappear either. They get spent in small towns and local communities, supporting restaurants, contractors, coffee shops, and small businesses that otherwise wouldn’t see that economic activity.

I don’t see the downside of letting managers manage by results instead of ZIP code. Keep the jobs that truly need to be in the office in the office. Let everyone else work where they’re most productive. And if someone wants to come into the office five days a week, great. No one is stopping them.

To me, that’s a much smarter long-term strategy than spending billions on offices while trying to convince people that sitting in a building creates value. Especially for a global communications company whose business is built on connecting people from anywhere.

Lenovo has confirmed layoffs within its US-based XR business unit. The company is transitioning its strategy from business-focused XR to a more consumer-oriented approach centered on AI-enabled wearables. This shift will integrate XR efforts into Motorola, aiming for a unified personal AI experience across devices. Lenovo's move reflects a broader industry trend of disinvesting from traditional VR/AR towards smart glasses and AI integration. The company's XR investments have not yielded expected returns, prompting this strategic pivot.

USA

https://skarredghost.com/2026/07/13/lenovo-vr-layoffs/

"If business demand requires hiring, what's the justification for layoffs? A balanced workforce strategy is important."

1. Startup: Bringing your business idea to life.

2. Growth: Consumers know about you and your revenue is increasing.

3. Maturity: More brand awareness and a strong presence in your target market.

4. Renewal or Decline: While every business wants to avoid a decline, it’s bound to happen to almost everyone. Reinvesting in your company can result in its renewal -- or decline can happen for a variety of reasons:
    

• Not pursuing opportunities to expand during the maturity stage
• Changes to the industry that require a change in strategy
• Competing businesses having better products or services
• Not reacting to technology updates or advances


https://www.thehartford.com/business-insurance/strategy/managing-growth/4-stages-business-growth

Can anyone share any BTC or KLTC success stories? I presume we have above average ppl at the highest levels of management. We’ve been on this TC journey now for a while and should be able to judge whether or not we should double down or reset our global talent management strategy. Are there truly tangibly positive results?

Microsoft’s gaming strategy has misfired badly

• A supply-chain crisis for Xbox couldn’t have come at a worse time*

IT IS NOT yet the PayPal mafia, but the Instacart matriarchy is making its mark. Not long after Fidji Simo, ex-head of the online grocery store, became Sam Altman’s product-focused sidekick at OpenAI, Asha Sharma, Instacart’s former chief operating officer, became Satya Nadella’s Ms Fix-it at Microsoft Gaming. Groceries are a tricky, low-margin business. So is Xbox—and Ms Sharma has wasted no time in getting to work. On July 6th, less than five months after becoming the division’s boss, she launched what she called the biggest reset in its 25-year history.

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/08/microsofts-gaming-strategy-has-misfired-badly

Ms Sharma has gone about her overhaul with a candour that is rare in the mealy-mouthed world of big tech. Declaring that Microsoft’s gaming arm is “not healthy”, she announced that 3,200 employees would be axed over the next 12 months, and that up to five loss-making studios would be shed. Her diagnosis makes two things clear: first, Mr Nadella’s gaming strategy has misfired badly; second, the entire console industry is in a supply-chain crisis. No hard-core gamer herself, the battles ahead will test Ms Sharma’s mettle.

With Mr Nadella’s attention focused on the artificial-intelligence bo-m in recent years, Xbox has suffered from neglect. Under previous management, it sought to reduce its reliance on the Xbox console and focus on its multi-platform subscription service, called Game Pass, intending to become the “Netflix of gaming”. To fuel demand, Microsoft invested what insiders say was upwards of $20bn on games and studios, in addition to the $70bn-plus it spent buying Activision Blizzard, maker of “Call of Duty”, in 2023.

Alas, Game Pass, which was meant to have 77m members this year, has fewer than 30m. Meanwhile, the multi-platform approach has undermined Microsoft’s own console business by making content available on other platforms, such as Sony’s PlayStation, which kept its own games off Xbox. Microsoft’s quarterly gaming revenue has been in decline since last autumn. Xbox’s operating margins are a meagre 3%. It has been losing market share to Nintendo, another console-maker. Bureaucracy has ballooned; in parts of the company, Ms Sharma says, work passes through 14 layers of management. Just like a real-life Pac-Woman, she intends to chomp those down to as few as three.

Her strategy is bold. The year of lay-offs will be the biggest in Xbox’s history. Her disposal of studios will end Microsoft’s attempt to hoover up indie game-developers. Yet it is not all cost-cutting. Insiders say Ms Sharma intends to invest in “Minecraft”, a hit game that was used as a cash cow rather than a growth engine and has lost significant ground to Roblox, a stable of games that competes for youngsters’ attention. She also plans to double down on mobile gaming using untapped expertise in King, creator of “Candy Crush”, which was bought with Activision.

The trickiest part will be rescuing the console. When Ms Sharma took over in February she promised “the return of Xbox”. Sales of gaming hardware have long been in decline, but insiders say Ms Sharma considers Xbox users to be her core customers, spending far more on games and services than PC players.

Yet as Ms Sharma tries to win them back, the ground is moving under her feet. When she took control of the business, AI-related demand for memory chips and other components had already caused costs to surge across the consumer-electronics industry. Within her first 50 days, input costs rose by 50%, a source at the company says. All three console-makers have been forced to announce price increases at a time when growth in the industry (excluding China) is sluggish.

The component crunch will have long-term consequences. Microsoft had hoped to increase production of consoles to support the eagerly awaited release of the latest version of “Grand Theft Auto”, made by Take-Two, a listed studio, which is rumoured to have cost a staggering $2bn to develop. The supply constraints will make it harder to increase production of consoles to meet the expected demand.

In 2028 both Microsoft and Sony are expected to launch the next generation of devices, which could also be hampered by the supply-chain chaos. Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, a consultancy, says Microsoft may be hit harder, because Sony, as a consumer-electronics company, has stronger relationships with suppliers. On July 1st Sony said it would stop selling physical discs in 2028, a decision that Mr Harding-Rolls says was long in gestation but might help offset rising costs.

Some think Microsoft’s best response to both the strategic blunders and the hardware crisis would be to spin off the gaming business. Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson, an investment firm, reckons that the lumpiness of revenue as a result of seven-year console cycles is better suited to private-equity investors than to public ones.

There are still rich seams of potential growth within Xbox that Ms Sharma will hope to mine before a final decision about its future is made. But as Ben Thompson of Stratechery, a popular newsletter, puts it, “Sometimes it’s Game Over.” ■

It amazes me how many d-mb decisions those above me in leadership make. They call in multiple 3rd party companies to direct them when they have thousands of people who have worked hand in hand with clients everyday for multiple decades and know what they want.

Investing in a POS solution wasn't Genius at all. Global put it's self in a market that immediately made all of your biggest partners leave because you are now the competitor.... Instead of increasing what was huge partnerships to just handle the payment processing. Both Tsys, Heartland, and Global all had 1000s of large partners and the companys were profitable but Global blindly decides to disrupt its own base and wonder why they are going broke... Get back to the foundations and focus on being the best payment processor and partner. You cannot compete in a software world where anyone can build their own POS now. Focus on being the payment partner of choice for every software.

A lotof cliches can be said so I'll spare you the boredom.

They did it again, stakeholder value was retained for a quarter at a cost of competency.

We knew this comany is not here to innovate, I mean the top product is a cheap SharePoint variant and the latest innovation is AI tool that saves you time in copy-paste, if you are willing to spend 6600$ a month to host it.

No one in OT asks themselves why other companies make money while we are not, they ask how can we milk a 30 year old tech with minimal effort and here we are, 2% down anda new announcement that now, this time, finally, for sure - will succeed because the problem was expensive employees not 8ncompetent accountants.

Ever heard about 3% YOY growth that never happens? Yes!
Ever heard about analysts that get fired for getting it wrong? No!
The OT way.. a graveyard for auccessful tech for sale.

Verizon is doing INCREDIBLY well. Maybe the greatest corporate success anyone has ever seen. People come up to me with tears in their eyes and say, “Sir… how do you lay off thousands of people while the stock keeps going down?” I say, “It’s called winning. You wouldn’t understand.”

The Fake News says, “The stock is down.” Wrong! It’s a beautiful strategic decline. Very advanced. The smartest people are saying they’ve never seen anything like it.

Every week there’s another reorg, another layoff, another AI announcement. Tremendous momentum. Nobody restructures better than Verizon. Nobody. Believe me.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/08/att-could-sink-as-starlink-use-soars-wells-fargo-says.html

Wells Fargo initiated coverage of AT&T with an underweight rating and set an $18 price target, implying nearly 15% downside from Tuesday's close.
In a note to clients, analyst Steven Cahall says Starlink is a near-term gainer in broadband relative to fixed wireless access and a longer-term disruptor to wireless. He says competition is likely to be fierce outside AT&T's fiber footprint, while the company's weaker market share footholds outside wireline areas leave its wireless net additions most at risk.

Cahall also says AT&T is less likely than rivals to strike a mobile virtual network operator partnership with Starlink. That leaves the company needing stronger execution in fiber and convergence to create upside for the stock, in his view.

Six years is enough time to judge a strategy and its results. Nothing has improved.

Leadership shouldn’t be evaluated by speeches, memos, or slogans. It should be evaluated by results.

Has the company become a more attractive place to work? Has it become easier to recruit top talent? Has morale improved? Has the culture become stronger? Has the strategy delivered the long-term results shareholders and employees were promised?

Those are the questions the board should be asking and the answer to every single one is NO.

I think it’s fair to ask whether the current strategy and the leadership behind it is the right one for the company’s future.

No leader should be immune from accountability. A truly market-based culture should hold leadership to the same standard it expects of everyone else. Nobody else with this poor performance would still be around. Get this loser out while there’s still something to save.

Shell has first mover advantage by selling non operated Nakika asset. This simplifies the company significantly and creates capital and capacity where it’s needed. Now BP will have Talos as a partner. Talos going to learn the hard way how slow and complex BP really operates.
Why didn’t BP sale when they had a chance?

Lessons learned from Hormuz conflict is that XOM needs secure LNG and Venture Global is the perfect fit. XOM was slow in January of 2026 where it could have bought it cheap…and most likely paid it off in short term

Lessons learned from Hormuz conflict is that XOM needs secure LNG and Venture Global is the perfect fit. XOM was slow in January of 2026 where it could have bought it cheap…and most likely paid it off in short term

Lessons learned from Hormuz conflict is that XOM needs secure LNG and Venture Global is the perfect fit. XOM was slow in January of 2026 where it could have bought it cheap…and most likely paid it off in short term

Just gonna repost this here…
EH + ELT when you’re ready to talk legit strategy and not just reorgs hmu
I still stand by most of what I said btw and then some.

First, STOP WITH THE CONSULTANTS FOR OUR STRATEGY 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
They don’t know the business like we do. They don’t understand what has made Nike Nike.

Second, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED STOP CLOUT CHASING.
It’s honestly an embarrassment at this point. We bring people and companies on that have NOTHING to do with athletics or sport. Perfect example is the skims collab. The announcement of how Nike was partnering with skims because they had knowledge and understanding of the feminine form read (to me and many others I know who think the skims brand is mediocre at best) we don’t care about investing in ourselves and innovation for female athletes - we’d rather contract that out. Next this last drop literally looked like things I could buy at a dance studio. Nothing innovative. And the Travis collabs… cmon. He’s problematic and has nothing to do with sport. Who remembers his tantrum playing kickball during JDI day? I get that we are in the streetwear arena now but our athletic styles made it into streetwear without trying and without non-athlete celebrity collabs. One offs are great or if it’s someone who isn’t problematic a regular collection is cool. But let’s be smart.

Third, LISTEN TO THE EMPLOYEES and stop protecting leadership (and yes people).
Tech was screaming at the top of their lungs how bad RL was.. we’ve heard the allegations. Then comes MD, again, SCREAMING she didn’t know what she was doing. Lower level employees see a lot more of what’s working and not than leadership; or that’s what it feels like since they do nothing to improve anything.
Fourth, OMG LISTEN TO CONSUMERS (thought this would be obvious)
Everyone complains about how narrow our shoes are. I’ve heard some explanations about this saying elite athletes have narrow feet. My solution? Standard sizing that the average person can wear and elite sizing (our current fit). Imagine the marketing antics we could pull with that. Nike wasn’t built by everyone agreeing and falling in line. To expect us to thrive with a majority yes people is absurd, but we also need more focused on collaboration. One team, best team, team Nike.

Five, MARKETING WTF ARE YOU DOING. Our brand should be in alignment.
How tf did “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated” pass through approvals?!?!!! Especially when one of core mottos/statements is “if you have a body, you’re an athlete.” Like are we inclusive and want everyone to make sport a daily habit, or shame people who are trying to be active? Alignment is key my guys and we can’t seem to pick a lane.

Six, WE NEED A BETTER FTE/ETW RATIO, not offshore all of tech and holy cow stop with the layoffs
We are literally always under investigation by the state for not having enough FTEs. Some ETW roles need to be converted, period. It’s not staff aug/special projects/SOWs/MSAs. It’s regular day in day out work that we are contracting out. Not just that the onboarding and offboarding costs (and the pain that that is).
I worked in GT. I do see the value in having ITC. However, I see bigger issues when the tech teams are working off hours. Tickets being closed because you don’t see their response in time because of the time difference. Tickets moving slowly because you can only send/receive one response per day. And it seems like with this shift changes have come down like, when an ETW converts creating an entirely new account for them (literally seems like they weren’t trained correctly or held accountable for this issue when for YEARS converting accounts wasn’t an issue).
Layoffs are bad. We do it to please wall street then have to ramp hiring back up or have to contract more work out. Not to mention the onboarding and offboarding costs associated. Plus these decisions are usually not made at Nike based on performance and it’s pretty evident.

Anyways EH let me know if you want to talk strategy cause I think I’ve got some great suggestions on correcting the ship.

Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk

Has anyone else noticed the growing toxicity of offshore leadership toward onshore FTEs, especially Americans?Or is everyone just too afraid to say it out loud?
Today, I had an encounter with my offshore director that was so profoundly disrespectful it finally pushed me to write this. It makes me wonder: does HR even care about what’s happening on the ground, or are they deliberately looking the other way while the culture burns?
What we are dealing with right now is a leadership vacuum that has been filled by toxic office politics. With offshore Indian teams, there is a pervasive lack of transparency, a culture of deceit, and managers who think it’s perfectly normal to lie and backstab to protect their own metrics. It’s a completely corrupt way of operating, and the onshore employees who actually care about the product are the ones paying the price.
Let me be clear: I understand the business case for outsourcing specific, targeted positions. That’s just the reality of the modern tech industry. But outsourcing pretty much entire scrum teams? That is a massive, fundamental mistake.
The drop in quality isn't just noticeable; it’s alarming. The code is suffering, the communication is fragmented, and things are getting visibly worse with every new offshore hire we onboard to replace an onshore FTE.
Leadership needs to wake up. They are treating this aggressive offshore push like a brilliant cost-saving measure, but in the long run, it is going to be the most costly mistake this company has ever made. If they keep letting this toxic management style run unchecked while sacrificing quality for cheaper labor, they are going to sink this ship straight to the ocean floor.
You can't outsource a bad strategy, and right now, the strategy is broken. Of you expect people from a broken system and from one of the most corrupt countries in the world to save this company you are TOTALLY wrong. Everything they ever touch turns to dust. The ONLY thing these people are interested in is their wallet and will do anything to make sure it's fat.

Just received an invite for tomorrow morning, 55minutes long. Sent to 'ETIPS_ALL_FTEs', only tidbit is "Please join the leadership team for an update on our future operating model and strategy". Whatever that means?

Being dropped from the Dow was a wake up call. The stock has struggled, morale has taken a hit, and many employees and investors are questioning the company’s direction. CEO Dan Schulman seems increasingly disconnected from those concerns. Cutting costs can only go so far, Verizon needs a clear strategy to rebuild confidence, grow again, and prove its best days aren’t behind it.

Just checking in to make sure everyone remembers that media over networks was absolutely the future. It was clearly the defining strategic vision of the decade, and there was never any reason to question whether combining a telecommunications giant like ours with one of the world's largest media businesses would create enormous synergies and long term value for both customers and shareholders.

The Time Warner acquisition was a masterclass in strategic acquisition. The strategy worked flawlessly, shareholder value soared, and the industry has been racing to copy the playbook ever since. It has become the gold standard for how transformational acquisitions should be executed. It demonstrates how 2 large companies can great enormous synergies when they come together. The only thing acquired faster than Time Warner was our confidence.

The Bloomington Economic Development Corp. hosted a regional economy event. Phil Powell presented a report on Monroe County's economic status. He noted the economy is holding steady but faces challenges. Average hourly earnings declined, while some sectors saw job growth. Powell urged leaders to develop a stronger regional economic strategy.

Bloomington, Indiana

https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/business/columns/2026/06/25/stronger-regional-strategy-needed-for-bloomingtons-economic-success/90679476007/

Companies poured billions into AI with sky-high expectations. It was supposed to be the ultimate productivity hack — slashing costs, supercharging innovation, and delivering effortless competitive advantage. Executives bet big that generative AI and automation would be the simple solution to margin pressure, talent shortages, and sluggish growth.

Now the reckoning is here.

Early pilots looked magical. Chatbots answered queries, code assistants sped up development, and analytics tools promised smarter decisions. But scaling those wins across the enterprise is proving far more expensive and complicated than the headlines suggested.

The costs are piling up: massive compute infrastructure, eye-watering energy consumption, specialized talent that commands premium salaries, constant model retraining, and the hidden expense of integrating brittle AI systems into legacy workflows. Many organizations are discovering that AI doesn’t magically replace headcount — it often requires more people to manage, monitor, and refine outputs. Hallucinations, bias issues, and compliance risks add further friction and potential liability.

The result? A growing number of leaders are quietly coming to terms with a harder truth: AI is a powerful tool, not a plug-and-play savior. ROI timelines are stretching. Some projects are being quietly deprioritized or rightsized. The hype cycle is colliding with balance-sheet reality.

That doesn’t mean AI is a bust. Far from it. The companies that will win are the ones treating it as a long-term capability build rather than a quick-fix expense. They’re focusing on narrow, high-value use cases, investing in data quality, building human-AI collaboration models, and being honest about both the upside and the total cost of ownership.

The era of “just add AI” is ending. The era of thoughtful, disciplined AI adoption is beginning.
What are you seeing in your organization — genuine transformation or mounting costs? Curious to hear real experiences.

#AI #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #TechAdoption

Will the Board continue to increase the dividend in September, or keep it flat, now that the company is no longer part of the DJIA?

Maybe it is time to reinvest in 'the Network' instead of social justice warrior networks. Elon Musk solved the rural broadband issue, while this company bobbled the ball again.

Maybe they should keep increasing the dividend, as none of the strategy groups have come up with a single investment that has returned its cost of capital in more than a decade. See the stock price for details, should there be any doubters!

He is here to do a job (merge this company with Deutsch Telekom) and that has nothing to do with your best interests.

June 2026
The New Board Member
Last week — on June 19, 2026 — Centene quietly expanded its Board of Directors from 9 to 10 members, appointing Lauren M. Tyler. She comes from over two decades at JPMorgan Chase, where she held roles including Global Head of HR for Asset and Wealth Management, Global Firmwide Chief Auditor, and Global Head of Investor Relations. She also sits on the boards of Cencora and Guardian Life.
On paper, this looks like a routine governance move. But the timing tells a different story.
Tyler is landing on two specific committees: Audit and Compensation and Talent. The Compensation and Talent Committee is the committee that oversees workforce decisions and pay structures — the exact committee with oversight over something like, say, a Voluntary Separation Package going out company-wide.
The Context Nobody Is Saying Out Loud
Centene reported a loss of nearly $6.7 billion in 2025. Medicaid redeterminations have been chipping away at membership for the past two years. ACA subsidy uncertainty is real. And now, with the current administration's push to reduce federal Medicaid funding, the core of Centene's business model — which is roughly 70%+ Medicaid managed care — is under direct pressure.
The VSP is not a surprise. It is a logical first move when a company needs to reduce headcount costs without triggering the optics of hard layoffs. The question everyone should be asking is: what comes after the VSP if not enough people take it?
The Macro Picture
The health sector broadly is in a tough spot right now — and this isn't just a Centene problem. Managed care organizations that depend heavily on government-sponsored programs are caught between:
Federal Medicaid funding proposals that could significantly reduce reimbursement
Rising medical costs that squeezed margins across the industry in 2024–2025
A regulatory environment that is increasingly unpredictable
Centene has actually shown some improvement — they raised their 2026 earnings guidance after Q1 results came in better than expected, largely due to successfully wrestling down medical costs. So it's not all bad. But the workforce reduction is clearly part of that margin protection strategy.
What This Means for Employees
If you are weighing the VSP, here are the honest things to consider:
Evaluate the package terms carefully. Look at severance weeks per year of service, how long COBRA coverage extends, and whether unvested equity is being paid out. Don't just look at the headline cash number.
The job market for healthcare tech is still active. Skills in Go, Kubernetes, observability tools, and cloud infrastructure are in demand outside of managed care. Your experience doesn't disappear when you leave.
Waiting may not be safer. If VSP participation is lower than targets, involuntary reductions often follow. That changes your negotiating position significantly.
The board is tightening its grip, not loosening it. Bringing in a JPMorgan finance and HR veteran onto the Compensation committee right now is a signal about the direction of governance — not a signal that things are about to get more employee-friendly.
Final Thought
The people who built this company and kept it running through a $6.7 billion loss year deserve better than a rushed exit package. But the reality is that the strategic decisions being made right now are being made at the board level, not by your direct manager or even your VP.
If you can swing it financially, taking the VSP and controlling your own exit is better than waiting to see what comes next. If you can't swing it, start building your options now regardless.
Wishing all Centene employees the best — whatever you decide.
This article reflects publicly available information and personal observations. All financial figures sourced from Centene's public SEC filings and press releases.

My first move as pretend AT&T CEO would be pretty simple:

Stop chasing “transformational” nonsense and run the company like a telecom company. Wireless. Fiber. Business services. Network reliability. Customer service. Debt reduction. That’s it.

No media empire. No satellite TV fantasy. No “synergy” PowerPoint garbage. No paying billions for assets and then selling/spinning them off later at a loss.

The basic plan would be:

1. Aggressively pay down debt instead of trying to look clever.
2. Keep investing in fiber, because that actually fits AT&T’s core strengths.
3. Protect the network craft workforce, because contractors and outsourcing can save money short term but can wreck service quality.
4. Simplify management layers, because AT&T has always seemed ridiculously top-heavy.
5. Stop abusing loyal customers with confusing promotions that reward switchers more than longtime customers.
6. Make executive compensation depend on long-term debt reduction, free cash flow, network quality, and employee retention, not just stock-price optics.

And yeah, I’d probably cancel half the consultant contracts in the first week.

But the hostile takeover part might be tough. AT&T’s market cap is massive, and I’m currently a little light on the tens of billions needed to pull that off. Also, I suspect the board would object to my official turnaround slogan: “Stop Doing D-mb Sh*t.”

Two years to reshape the C-suite? Why wasn’t that done in year one?

Feels like another long, drawn out strategy instead of action. If it takes this long to make leadership changes, what does that say about fixing the real problems?

And let’s not pretend this is a new CEO walking into a mess. He was already there. If these are the people who needed to go, why did it take two years to figure that out?

At some point, you have to wonder if the problem is execution, not strategy.

So many missed potential sales with these Amazon returns. The dinosaurs in leadership stuck on old rent-to-own tactics trying to convert non rent-to-own people into customers instead of making our business meet their needs and earn their business. I've had success selling to these people and let's just say $.01 starts doesnt work. Averaging $140 in cod with these sales. It can be done. Need new fresh minds at the top. Stop holding us back!

There are so many strategy teams doing the same thing and then doing the work of other groups too. Then we have the external strategy groups doing the same thing. What’s the point?

How realistic is the target? Is there a portal that actively shows progress on this?

It was a fun ride while it lasted but time to go. I was on the Automation/Remainco side and don’t have faith in that team to set any sort of real strategy. (“Launch more NPIs” is not a strategy) For those sticking around, best of luck in the coming Hunger Games! I hope you like eating curry.

As we approach the midway point in 2026, nervousness is starting to set in for several employees in sales.

The narrative across the company is “We are not hitting our numbers.” Remember the numbers we are not hitting are those numbers set by the senior leaders. Senior leaders have far too often set unrealistic goals. The truth is our senior leaders should have seen the trends and adapted to them earlier but here we are sitting on the edge of our seats.

It’s time to rid the company of those individuals in sales that don’t speak with directly with customers. Running a branch of employees that only come on one or two days a week is not needed.

The days of clicking a button and watching the numbers grow are over.

Did you guys see SV’s presentation? He has figured out that physical AI technology of RemainCo is going to change the world and shoot this company to the top. Much as his career has taken off in last 30 years with only PowerPoint slides, without ever getting his hands dirty with any tech project.
Also with UOP taking over HPS management, it’s star is going to shine. Two years ago UOP took over Solstice AM management just for four months before they spun it out and the latter’s stock price has doubled in just 6 months.

This is from 1999 when we saw share prices drop by 24 percent just wondered if they dusted this off from an old set of meeting minutes..it feel awful familiar.

"In April, Thoman unveiled a plan to remake Xerox’s image as a technology company instead of a copier maker. The shift, which involves realigning the sales force, is designed to let Xerox sell customized packages of consulting services, software and machines that the company says will generate half its revenue in the next decade."

Guyana the poster child for operational excellence is starting to show some signs of depletion and sand/water production. Maintaining an FPSO above 260,000 bopd for over 6 months is looking like an improbability. By September Exxon will have to purchase another company with substantial production and reserves. Who do you expect it to be?

It's easy to focus on quarterly headlines. Harder to ignore a 46%+ loss in market value over 12 months. Don't forget the big picture.

Is it prudent to permit a BL favorite and boosted sycophant the opportunity to repair a broken organizational structure? BP is complex by design and by intent. Creative ideas and processes that are successful at other operating companies are frowned upon and sabotaged from the get go. Yet other operating companies that manage ex BP assets do so at a profit and discover and exploit the uplift left behind by people like GB

Just floating around with the tide and no destination. They could have been something if they bought up companies and simply just left them alone. The hubris of strategy, synergies, and merger integration....SBC RBOC boys from Texas. They were block head hammers and everything was a nail. Saw it first hand with the Cingular tie up. SBC heads for the most part were belligerent bulldozers.