I heard the UK lost a lot of staff in Q2 but have any other European countries been affected ? Some Euro colleagues I spoke with said things were on hold due to the BT merger.
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@f3 100%
@er I think you have the causality backwards.
Europe did not destroy Verizon. Verizon has repeatedly made strategic decisions to enter markets, acquire businesses, integrate them into its portfolio, and later change direction, divest them, or shut them down.
Just look at Verizon's own corporate history: the acquisition of MCI/WorldCom to build Verizon Business and its international enterprise presence; Terremark and CloudSwitch as part of the cloud strategy; AOL and Yahoo! as part of the media strategy; XO's fiber business; BlueJeans in unified communications; and numerous other acquisitions and divestitures. Verizon's own history is essentially a long record of strategic bets, acquisitions, integrations and subsequent changes in direction.
You may argue that some of those decisions were good or bad, but blaming "Europe" or European employees for Verizon's problems is rewriting corporate history. These were decisions made by Verizon leadership and ultimately accountable to Verizon's board and shareholders.
The same applies to Verizon's international enterprise business. Verizon chose to build a global network, acquire MCI, serve multinational customers and maintain a significant presence in Europe for decades. European engineers and employees did not make those strategic decisions. They operated and supported the business Verizon chose to build.
If Verizon now believes that combining its international enterprise business with BT is the right strategy, that is another strategic decision by Verizon management. It is not evidence that "Europe destroyed Verizon."
In fact, the opposite argument is at least as plausible: Verizon repeatedly entered markets and built businesses, then changed strategy and dismantled or sold parts of what it had built.
You can criticize Verizon's international strategy all you want. But turning that into "Europe destroyed the company" , or calling European employees "parasites" is neither a serious analysis nor supported by Verizon's own corporate history.
The problem here is not Europe. The problem is strategic execution.
@es Given your tunnel vision and a limited sense of humour, I assume you're not being sarcastic and you are an American. I'm feeling sorry for your fellow Americans that such small men like you are the reason of the ruined US image and trustworthiness in the world.
"in the belly of the books?" Either you are a bean counter or you meant in the belly of the beast - then you are pretty much right, I'll give you that.
Besides Dan said Verizon was doing great under his non-growth, stock buyback and RIF centric leadership, so if you disagree, I suggest you send him a letter :)
@b5 face it, you guys are parasites that destroyed the biggest dog in telecom.
@bd I do. 35+ years in the belly of the books.
When VZ Europe began, VZ Domestic fell apart. The company robbed the Irish and bings no serious cash flow out of EUR sales. Fact!
ALL VP from Europe made a mess. See stock price for details.
European and South Asian execs destroyed customer service and brought in BS technology instead of doing what made shareholders and employees money.
It is a clown car now.
VOD won big, VZ lost big
@b0 you’ve embarrassed yourself there…you clearly don’t even know what Verizon does globally
@b0 you small small man
This is what destroyed the company and the product. Why are there ANY offices in Europe?
France, Germany and I think also Belgium lag behind due to strong employee protection and work councils - these countries also rank among the ones with the highest tax burden in Europe.
The rest has been cut a few months a ago.
Staff have left in some countries especially UK but others are tied up in legal proceedings and wrangling…so they will exit over the next few months. Once the JV is closer to being a going concern it’s inevitable there will be more layoffs especially in overlapping functions