I’m in a meeting with 7 useless CTC members. They just dropped they’ll be raising rates. They’re now our most overpriced and least effective vendor.
Don’t people realize we’re fleecing our core work here?
21 replies (most recent on top)
The value creation proposition is exactly how BUs should look at it. If CTC work adds barrels or reduces costs, value is created. BCG works this way and that's how they can charge $10-20 million for a few months of consulting work.
I love how the new CTC president said in a townhall a while back that BU’s should not ask about the increased cost allocations from CTC and rather about the value they get from CTC. Me answer is they both su#k!!! And so did his completely detached response and lack of awareness…….!
Do you have a Ticket for this?
With a few (very few) acceptions the staff of CTC are arrogant over educated under performing prima Donna's.
Gut the whole CTC organization ,rebuild as a cost center with only the minimum staffing required ro support the core business. Make a flat organization, eliminate all the team leads, advisors and managers.
One deputy and one GM should be able to run the necessary functions in the center to support the BU'S.
Mass cull is the only way forward.
Didn’t CTC invent horizontal drilling and fracking?
None of the frac/permian debate makes CTC look good. “Well we had the tech, we just couldn’t make a compelling case for anyone to use it in the Permian.” Either ineffective data, or ineffective stakeholder engagement. If CTC was valued or trusted, they’d be leading strategy.
Also, buying a company for their fracing skills is very different from having developed your own. Being in the game from bolt on acquisition is not driving tech development. Btw, how did that acquisition turn out after we got our hands on it…
@1woy, remember that while fracking was really taking off in the middle of the last decade, Chevron was busily laying off all their MCBU staff as they considered the BU way past its prime (that is, vertical drilling of nearly depleted fields). @1rgv: "...let’s be honest, all the majors were late to that game." Well, yes and no. Independents proved the value of fracking in the 2000's. Chevron invested in the fracking game by buying Atlas (for Marcellus) in 2011, and was crowing about similar potential in Poland and Argentina. Management knew well about fracking, but not fracking in the Permian. It remains a head-scratcher why they purged MCBU in 2015 before turning around and "embracing" it (with inexperienced staff) just a year or two later.
They are getting outsourced to eastern Europe. That's what happens when you cross JG.
CTC hasn't been a game-changer or ground-breaker for a very long time. Over the last decade they pushed the experienced Boomers out the door, then replaced them with green college diversity hires. Ph.Ds with pompous attitudes and condescending airs. Even when the strategy changed to focus on MCBU meeting their production goals, CTC still didn't produce.
Fully agree with @1mpc. Another related issue is that no one in the center has managed time=money projects. There is an art to that type of project management, see consultants, and the entitled class of CTC has no idea how to deliver.
Chevron being 10 years late to fracking isn’t a win for CTC…kinda the opposite…”hey see this thing everyone else is doing? And it’s working great? We should try that.” How many phds did that take? Boy I’d love to see the PowerPoints!
Seriously - name a contribution in the last 5 years.
Perhaps the available model should be dissolved. Most major organizations do not have a billable model for the Center technical group. A lean fit for purpose group that does not require billables would be more effective. The current model incentivizes waste because people just want to have something to charge to and milk it. I will tell you from personal experience, though globally CTC has more low performing and more high-performing individuals compared to business units. I will admit I think the average is higher at the business unit though. The business unit employee answers to a manager for performance and hard, deliverables whereas management and CTC is fairly disconnected from business units, and the employee is measured on billables. If you did a group pole of business units, I do not believe you would find a correlation between high billable rate and performance in the eyes of the customer.
20 years? Less than ten!
Not that long ago…like 20 years? And let’s be honest, all the majors were late to that game. Independents proved and developed shale tech. The reality of the market place drove adoption above all else.
I’ve been here 5 years, and yet to see anything of tangible value CTC has produced. It’s only PowerPoint, corporate speak, and intellectual masturbation.
It wasn't that long ago that MCBU fought CTC tooth and nail over the Permian with the BU brain trust refusing to consider horizontal wells or fracking. Too bad they lost that expensive battle with CTC, huh?
It might not be causing those things, but sure as sh-t isn’t helping. And at least those things make money. CTC can only increase profits by shaking down BUs
Hopefully CTC gets it act together! They are clearly the reason why MCBU cannot meet their production goals and why FGP is years behind schedule and why ABU cant figure out how to inject their CO2 reliably and why BUs keep ki-ling people and why we overpay for acquisitions and why we waste so much money on buying our stock near record highs. Sure hope CTC figures it out soon!
They’re the worst consultants I have. Exorbitant prices. Little to no value work products. Any useful work is usually done by consultants (with a markup). If they were stand alone consultants we never, ever use them. Not at their absurd rates at least.
They need to show a profit or their services may not be needed.
Why buy off the shelf when CVX can have 1 off design and not used by anyone else. So it cost 10 times more. Someone in the company wakes up every morning ands says dang I didn’t waste 1 million yesterday let’s get 2 today. During the comms meeting it was stated that CVX can’t be compared to other companies it is not the same. Right they find oil and produce for cheaper
Umm, inflation? You want the experts to work without raises? They likely earn more than you.