Thread regarding Emerson Electric Co. layoffs

What is the problem with innovation?

My father worked in this company as well. Back then, Emerson was something else entirely. A company that used to be very innovative, now fails to innovate, and instead we have mergers and acquisitions.
I don’t intend to spend much more time here, I'll be looking for another job soon, but still I would like to know what the problem is and why there is no more innovation here.

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| 2443 views | | 10 replies (last March 23, 2022) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1fLqu1PC

10 replies (most recent on top)

Let’s be clear here. Emerson is the leading PROCESS Automation supplier in the USA and is a close #1 or #2 PROCESS Automation supplier globally. ABB may be #1 globally. If you look at Automation Solutions which includes D & I, Emerson is no where close to being #1 as Emerson does not have the INDUSTRIAL Automation position that a Siemens, ABB or others have. The PROCESS industry is slow to adopt new technology compared to other industries and product iterations will work for a good number of years. Breakout technologies will be needed at some point if not already so Emerson needs to be ready when that time arrives.

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Post ID: @8iwg+1fLqu1PC

That is not true. EMR is the leading automation supplier globally. Of course, in places like Germany and Japan, Siemens and Yokogawa have leads but total global market Emerson is #1. You cannot get there without organic innovation. Of course acquisitions are another way to grow into unserved markets. So all said and done, I don't get why EMR is considered so much worse than any of it's competitors. If the Automation industry is where someone enjoys to work, it is still the top company to work for.

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Post ID: @2tkr+1fLqu1PC

We aren’t leading automation supplier in the world. Only US.

Companies buy automation systems for 10+ years. This industry hasn’t seen much innovation overall. Emerson grew it’s market share by acquiring until it’s almost impossible to not do business with Emerson on a capital project. Instrumentations, valves, control systems, plcs, cabinets, lighting, device software, mes, on and on and on.

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Post ID: @2zie+1fLqu1PC

I don’t get how such a poorly managed company with so many losers can possibly be the leading automation supplier in the world. The amount if loyal customers, good financials and industry accolades doesn’t line up with the comments being made. Something must be right. And it cant be living off old designs. Eventually that would catch-up.

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Post ID: @2uly+1fLqu1PC

Which 2 divisions were you at? Sounds familiar

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Post ID: @2jkh+1fLqu1PC

Emerson is a stupid company with no innovation, driven to do whatever helps shareholders with no idea of morality. Support Russia, support India, fire people with 30 years experience without cause… what a stupid organization.

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Post ID: @2sgp+1fLqu1PC

At least in in the 2 divisions that I worked in, the pay was terrible. Why would anyone want to work harder when every 3-4 years they freeze pay.

Things got so bad with the lack of effective technical leadership who didn’t really understand the modern technology landscape. The business people paid attention to buzzwords like AI, machine learning and big data, but I didn’t know of a single team or engineer who had the background in those areas. Keeping up with the rest of the industry was a joke. We were using tools from a decade ago. No investments were made in people or equipment as it was the case we were always short on hardware to develop on. We were using a single license illegally of a program that 30 software engineers needed to perform their job by not paying for extra licenses.

Then you have people who are suppose to be leading engineers and who instead of enforcing patterns and architecture were fixing bugs entry level engineers should have worked on. Also people who had no experience or desire to be managers being managers. Completely unable to coach or lead their projects.

All of the above resulted in products being late by years and delivering a fraction of the functionality that the previous version of the product had and with many more quality issues to make matters worse.

Meanwhile you have acquisitions that were 100+ million that failed to deliver value, where most of the initial leadership and technical talent left after being acquired.

Why would the underpaid existing Emerson employees want to innovate in that environment.

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Post ID: @1lhv+1fLqu1PC

Last poster sounds like a strategic planner paid to share good news with his bosses. If he dug deeper, he’d see most of Emerson value is created by old products and they continue to iterate on them, not innovate.

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Post ID: @1lfc+1fLqu1PC

Not quite sure what you are referring to. On the AS side, EMR products are mostly no 1 or no 2 position in Control Magazine annual surveys. Many of those products are newly launched products. On CR side, market position for all products continue to be No 1 at least in US market. So clearly innovation is happening. Mergers and acquisitions are a necessary tool to continue to refocus company based on changing times. Not a bad thing for a company like EMR who has a very strong balance sheet.

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Post ID: @1iny+1fLqu1PC

Planning process driven management

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Post ID: @1nxi+1fLqu1PC

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