I heard from a reliable source that both Arvind Krishna and James Kavanaugh have incentivized senior executives with very aggressive resource reduction targets and are offering large bonuses for those that achieve them. As just one example, a high level executive was recently hired from outside the company, came in, installed several direct reports from the executive's old company, and then, with almost no discussions with the existing management team, began just eliminating entire teams with zero plans for how to transition the workload. This C level executive has never spent more than 4 years at any company and will almost certainly collect their giant bonus while never having to deal with the wreckage and plummeting customer and employee morale that ensues. Of course, Arvind Krishna and James Kavanaugh will collect their fat bonuses, too, for the short term pop, while continuing to not hold their cronies accountable for the real problem at IBM which is poor strategy and performance by senior executives to drive market share and revenue by converting R&D advantages into marketable products.
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Well then, I guess the Execs got BIG Bonuses this time!!!!
execs fail miserably
breathtakingly they fire everyone else to cover their behinds
i am not sure we are in merit-based/free market anymore Toto
Sounds like something that should be sent to James okeefe
"Bonuses are usually tied to meeting financial profit targets -- those targets can be achieved by increasing revenue or reducing costs."
Duh. The point is that failing companies ALWAYS lean on the expense side of things with almost ZERO accountability for continuously missing revenue objectives. A well run company would fire its CEO if annual revenue growth objectives are missed two years in a row. Instead, the CEO continues to make his/her R/E by cutting expenses without regard to how that will impact market share and revenue growth. Incestuous and also unaccountable boards NEVER hold the CEO accountable and even if they DO fire them, they send them off with ENORMOUS severance packages at shareholder expense.
I agree with the comments about managers or so-called leaders in the company. For a squad of 9-12, only half of the team is working and carrying the load. The rest are free-loaders. These free-loaders don't even make an effort to attend stand-up calls and they always have an excuse, as to why they cannot attend stand-up calls. I believe it is because they don't have a status to provide. The only reason why the managers are keeping these dead weights is to keep their managerial status. There is a minimum number of direct reports required to keep their managerial status.
"All they do in meetings is give empty feedback to pretend they are participating but they don't understand what is going on. "
BINGO
The people in "management" appear to know very little technical knowledge or have not kept up at all and for some delusional reason they believe that they can hide it.
If they cannot hide it, they will some child that will be enamored by their business knowledge.
IBM is full of so-called leaders with no leadership skills and whose job is to attend meetings. They are a waste of space even in Webex. All they do in meetings is give empty feedback to pretend they are participating but they don't understand what is going on. At this time when employees are unsure if they will have a job tomorrow or not, these so-called leaders cannot even motivate or inspire employees. They are washing their hands telling their direct reports that they don't have an idea or any control of what is going to happen.
Let’s be brutally honest here. How many have us have been on calls where most everyone is off camera, adding little to no value to the discussion. Same goes for in-person meetings, where most peeps are unabashed about multitasking. The IBM reality is that a small percentage of the massive workforce DOES THE WORK. They care about the clients and partners. They believe in the portfolio of products. They want to be better and influence others to be the same. So much of the workforce is checked out, and that is a shame for a company that has been around for over a century and has impacted the world.
It is very hard to overstate the bloat that existed in the pre-Gerstner era. IBM had a corporate intranet (IIN, a.k.a. "IBM Internal network") before corporate intranets were even a thing. This was in pre-TCP/IP history, so the bulk of the network was subarea SNA, requiring tons of administrators.
In Gerstner's tenure, IIN was eventually merged with the Sears (yeah, that Sears) intranet to form Advantis. Advantis in turn was eventually handed off to AT&T. during Palmisano if I'm not mistaken. At the time that I left, IBM's network was managed by a combination of IBM and AT&T staff.
Why does anyone think this is illegal? The US has the weakest labor laws in the G20 and you think somehow it would be illegal for execs to lay off employees? IBM will treat you the same way it treats furniture - get some more when they're running low, throw some in the dumpster if they think they have too much.
I was around for the entirety of Lou Gerstner's tenure. It is indeed true that he canned a lot of people, and he brought in helpers to play the hatchet men. HOWEVER, IBM at that time was big and bloated. It had tens of thousands of what were then purely internal employees running hundreds of internal data centers in cities around the world. These were raised-floor facilities with duplicate mainframe staffs (systems programmers, RACF administrators (remember them?), application developers). There were sales people that brought in little to no revenue, and administrators of every shape, size and kind. IBM Global Services didn't exist yet, so there was no formalized form of outsourcing or consulting, and no services revenue. All that stuff was started under Gerstner's tenure, and that's what he'll be credited for.
If Lou didn't do the cutting, then somebody else would have done so, or IBM would have fell over...not from starvation, but from morbid obesity.
WOW. Those that do not remember history...........
Does the name Lou Gerstner, aka the cookie monster, mean anything ?
IBM will keep repeating the same actions until the stock dividend dives and the major holders dump the investments.
If true need to talk to law firms for possible class action suit. They shouldn't be playing with people who have mortgages, rent, family, food, utilities etc to take care of. But then this is IBM
Bonuses are usually tied to meeting financial profit targets -- those targets can be achieved by increasing revenue or reducing costs.
IBM is no longer a front page story. In fact, in many venues it is no longer any kind of story, for the story has already been told over many years. People in the know are running away from the company, be they rank-and-file employees, executives, or customers. They aren't d-mb, and they aren't ignorant. Like a failing restaurant, the furniture and cooking gear have been sold off for cash, and the staff is looting the safe and cash registers every night for spare change. Expenses have been cut to the bone, and the overpaid restaurant consultants have been brought in to try to save the joint. They've tried updating the menu, they've tried updating the decor, and they've tried changing the restaurant theme from fine dining to fast casual. It didn't work. They couldn't even get take-out pizza and take-out Chinese to work, and running a food truck is too far beneath the overpriced executives.
Stick a fork in it...IBM is finished. Short the stock if you still have any.
If this is really true and there is absolute proof and evidence to back this up, then this needs to made public somehow as a front page story.