The original contract signed was in 2004 and was for managing telecom networks, desktops and other software applications at Bharti Airtel. It was worth around $300 million annually and over $2 billion overall for IBM India. It was also one of the most showcased engagements globally for Big Blue.
Now, as Airtel prepares to announce renewal of this 10-year-old contract, IBM’s share of the business is set to be reduced to around $100 million annually, at least three people familiar with the discussion said. ...
For IBM, a lot is riding on this contract beyond just the commercial value. IBM’s current CEO Ginni Rometty made a quiet visit to India last year to meet Airtel’s Mittal, underscoring how crucial it is for IBM to ensure that the contract renewal happens without too much reputational damage.
I have been tracking the internal fraud at IBM India and even the negotiations that could see its biggest outsourcing contract in the country reduced by over half. Now, sources at IBM and those in the industry are telling us there’s much more to the recent firing of dozens of senior and mid-level staff than just a cost-cutting move being executed globally.
And it’s not just internal process violations forcing IBM to let its staff in India go. IBM’s revenues have been declining for the past seven quarters, causing a rethink of its top-heavy management structure. ...
“It’s a bloodbath for those making anywhere between half a million to $1 million and above annually,” an executive told me two weeks ago. In India, there are at least a dozen such highly paid executives who have been either asked to take a pay cut or move a rank below.
The pressure to cut costs and rationalize is not just for the top positions — many low-level programmers and even mid-level operational staff are facing the whip, too. Earlier this month, IBM started the process of laying off around 2,600 staff in India. ...
After dominating India’s over $70 billion domestic software industry for over a decade, IBM’s revenues and profits from the country have been shrinking recently. According a regulatory filing with India’s ministry of corporate affairs, IBM’s profits for the financial year ended March 2013 fell by 20 percent.
"The main one is the overwhelming demand for technology workers," Stevenson said. (H-1B visas aren't reserved solely for technology jobs, though they typically drive much of the demand.) She pointed to the White House's emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, for instance, as a sign of poor IT skills development in the US. Stevenson said that some of her firm's clients struggle to find even qualified entry-level talent for certain tech jobs. "We're just not having enough of our US students enrolling in STEM degree programs," Stevenson said. "Not having enough US workers who are trained in the STEM fields, that's where the main demand is coming from."
Selected reader comments follow:
How can American I.T. applicants compete against Indian workers that have had training subsidized by the Indian government? Workers that do not have family obligations. Workers that are young and come without any healthcare needs. Workers that are here for a few years and then take the money and go back home to India.
It is disgraceful that our legislators are selling American jobs to oversees workers.
Let's also add that this is huge contributor to the income gap that we see in America. These are the middle class jobs that are being offshored. Of course we now have a widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Congress is seeing to it that we do by using H1-B's.
Why because if they have to allow ramp up on the skill set they'd rather do it at a cheaper rate. Where does that leave Americans and green card holders who are seeking jobs with that skill set, or recent college graduates? Where does it leave America's future in IT? We've been losing that edge for decades.
The H1B program should be eliminated, period. It's a disgrace isn't it' all because of the myths spread by greedy corporations who are just here for the NYSE listing.
US citizens and Green card holders have houses, mortgages, families; when they are replaced by H1Bs who pays for the loss in taxes (income and otherwise) and unemployment benefits.
H1Bs like to talk about how they pay SS taxes; OK I'd say put it down to a cost of being here and burnishing the resume. US banks. telecoms and even state governments (and the federal government too) offshore (and inshore via H1B and L1 visas), It's part of the bean counter tools and what it does is cause MISERY for US families.
The Global Retirement Index survey provides some idea of where the United States ranks relative to other nations with regard to meeting retirement needs through its retirement system.
This year, the U.S. – sixth highest in per capita income – finished a relatively low 19th, behind several European nations, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Korea. The U.S. was ahead of Israel. The survey also found New Zealand, Iceland and South Korea improved the most in the last year.
Retirees in countries that enjoy the greatest financial security in retirement live in Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Finland and New Zealand.
Pros:
Cons: Where should I start...
Pros: The brand is recognizable on a resume. Health benefits are pretty good. There are tons of different types of positions inside the big blue machine. Exposure to many different technologies. They allow some positions to work remotely which greatly helps with "work life balance".
Cons: Pay well below market rate. I'm actually below the bottom range Glassdoor shows for my position in my city with 8 years of experience. IBM will always try to pay as little as possible. The only real way to get a nice salary increase is to come to IBM with a competing offer and threaten to leave. I've done this twice.
The company is a huge, highly inefficient, mess of bureaucracy but comparable to other mega corps I've worked for. There seems to be very little loyalty towards employees which give little incentive for employees to be loyal.
They will attempt to lock you into their proprietary systems. If you don't take time to learn industry standards (outside of IBM standards) you risk being stuck with only company specific knowledge.
They decided to hold the 401k match for the entire year. If you are fired, part of a lay off, or you leave you lose this match. The company also gets to earn the interest on that match that the employee should be earning.
Advice to Senior Management: A $20 EPS goal at the risk of employee burn out and just flat out canning entire divisions cannot be sustained. Show some more loyalty to employees, pay them what they are worth, and maybe the will return the favor.
Pros: The company provides many opportunities in diverse businesses with smart people. The company thrives on interconnected work forces around the US and internationally. So you will be part of larger teams on a regular basis. The company focuses on its customers and has a strong flavor of business ethics.
Cons: There are lots of layers of management for approvals and budgets (not unusual in a very large company). The company really does not develop many cutting edge software products but it does do its best to partner with other companies to offer solid solutions to its customers. Because teams are spread out geographically you have to not mind to be on conference calls on a very regular basis.
Pros: Professional colleagues who are usually willing to help. Easy to move around US while staying in the same position. A sense of stability, depending which group you are in ( I am in SWG). Salary seems to be competitive no matter of race or sex.
Cons: Management does not provide what is needed to be excellent only enough to get by. Hard to be a top performer without sucking up to management. Very hard to move up without being a consecutive top performer.
Advice to Senior Management: Listen to staff and give us what we need to be successful. If you told a employee they have a good idea help them implement it or at least get it started.
Pros: The salary is very competitive; the work is challenging and interesting. It's a big name in the industry and has practically unlimited resources. Push for success and employee promotion on the personal and professional levels.
Cons: Bureaucracy. So much of it. Ridiculous new employee tests. Filling in forms. Ridiculous email client everyone has to use. So many company-wide spam emails. It's as if they don't really want you to be working.
Advice to Senior Management: Stop the silly acts, drop the tests, let people do what they're there to do. A teaser for extra knowledge and such could go a long way—if it came once every 2-3 months not every other day.
Pros: I've been at IBM for 14 years. For the most part, it has been a great place to work. We have market leading products in almost every segment we compete in. There are a lot of great people at IBM. I've had many bosses over the years, and the vast majority have been good people to work for.
Cons: Our products are generally among the highest priced in the industry so we are often beaten by lower cost competitors. We are a technically focused company rather than a marketing focus, so sometimes our product is the superior product technically, but we lose because we don't market well. As a salesman, I often struggle to boil down our value prop to a digestible story that customers understand.
Advice to Senior Management: More formalized and regular employee feedback. The annual review process is perfunctory at best.
Pros: Company is big, working hour is flexible as a developer.
Cons: Most of the management doesn't care about its employees. Spending cut for more than 10 years; lay off round after round; rumors all over. High level management lost directions; reply on buying other tech companies for growth. Almost zero salary increase and bonus; benefits was cut year after year.
Advice to Senior Management: Management should spend more time help employee grow in their career path, understand employee's concerns.
Pros: Pockets of highly intelligent people who have spent years mastering their field are an excellent resource. Many IBMers willing to be mentors and help you. Team work is strong and technical resources are great. Some of the kindest people I have ever worked with. Work from home. Flexibility is probably unparalleled.
Cons: Acquisition mash-up. Execs are put in charge who know little about the technology or the new buyer. Knowledge base is dwindling with turnover which is a constant, and customers are not pleased. With the knowledge base goes the innovation. Morale is in the can and no strategy to retain top talent. Good reps are looking elsewhere. No salary increase, even if you are a top performer. Opportunity to advance is slow and painful. Sales tools are process-heavy, out of date, and not integrated. Spend more time reporting than selling. You are a serial number that delivers a quota. Pay is not industry standard.
Advice to Senior Management: Wake up. Top talent is leaving and customers are losing faith in IBM.
Pros: It pays the bills (mostly); never bored at work (for better or worse); your peers are in the same boat and they are good to work with.
Cons: It's impossible to get your pay to reflect the work. They will overwork you and expect everything to just work as if it did before. The company is driven by metrics and these metrics are now getting in the way of people doing their jobs or finding more efficient ways of doing things because it does not fall with the current processes. They will hire any idiot with some type of degree, even if they have no technical skill or they prove that they are a greater hindrance to the team then an asset.
Advice to Senior Management: Get the business back on track, customer first metrics second. And pay people for the work that they do; do not leave them at entry level pay for several months when they are performing at a level 2 or 3 steps above what they are getting paid.
Pros: Good technology, interesting problems to work on.
Cons: Ratio of demands to rewards is high. Either minimal or zero raises, minimal bonus at best, no profit sharing. Generally high pressure atmosphere at all levels of management. Typical expectation of being online and available at all hours of the day and weekends.
Advice to Senior Management: If you're going to expect so much out of people at least compensate them fairly.
Pros: Flexible work, work from home, work life balance. IBM offers a flexible work arrangement that is great if you have a family and your kids are little.
Cons: IBM does not pay the market rate. They lay off employees anyhow without any consideration to performance. The only focus is on the bottom line and earnings per share. No training or development of employees.
Advice to Senior Management: People are your best asset, stop wasting them.
Pros: A great company with opportunities that span the globe. You can start at the bottom—mail room and become Chairperson as one of the past CEOs did. They have excellent benefits and pay better than average. You can progress based on merit and are given opportunities based on skills and accomplishments.
Cons: Extremely competitive as you are working with the best. IBM hires from the top tier of candidate so your peers are all above average. If this is intimidating for you, this is not the place for you.
Pros: Can typically work from home if you're an office worker. Casual work environment. Good benefits, though there have been several negative changes recently in them.
Cons: No longer interested in supporting the workers. Raises are rare and small and compensation is deliberately targeted to be at best industry average. Education, once a strong point, is mostly on-line, on-demand even when that's not a good way to learn the material.
Advice to Senior Management: You can't build the best company out there if all you're investing in is buying small companies in the hopes you can sell their good stuff to a larger audience.
Pros: If someone has done it before they will be at IBM. The trick is to find them.
Cons: Very cheap on travel options. Only focused on employee utilization. Red tape is unbelievable.
Advice to Senior Management: Consider the comfort of employees who travel 100%. Stop focusing on internal issues and focus on the clients.
Pros: You get to work with some very smart and dedicated people.
Cons: This company has lost any respect for the people it employs. The company constantly takes away from the employees in search of achieving its stated 2015 target for EPS. In 2013 there were no raises given and in 2014 they did away with any bonuses to the employees that typically work 60 to 80 hours per week. They will lay anybody off no no matter what their performance might be to save money. The morale in this company is very low and everybody is just collecting a paycheck until they get laid off.
Advice to Senior Management: Get back to TJ Watson's vision of what is important in IBM. Take care of your customers. Become innovative again by developing something in-house instead of constantly through acquisitions. Reward your employees and provide some stability in the workplace. Get rid of unneeded processes and time wasters.
Pros: It is a job with a decent salary. Good learning facilities. Diverse industry experiences.
Cons: You are a number, not a person. You get no coaching, mentorship, or help. Unrealistic promotion process. It is a typical who you know, not what you have accomplished.
Advice to Senior Management: No advice, the culture drives the behavior.
Pros: Great company to work for, however experience can be drastically different depending on the management. Big brands are usually good to have on resume, helps later in life. If you are keeping in contact with people around you, opportunity to grow internally is pretty good.
Cons: Ever since the new CEO (Ginni) joined the company has gone downhill. Employee benefits are close to nill now; there used to be a lot more. Cost cutting has ruined the culture. IBM is known globally for cheap labour; they don't like to pay any more than the minimum rate. Difficult to survive if you are not part of the bureaucratic system Lots of politics and internal jobs are given based on internal links/boys club If you are not keeping up with the politics redundancies can come knocking at your door any minute.
Advice to Senior Management: Please invest towards future and not just focus on meeting target line today. If the company keeps going this way there will be no business left in future. Provide training to your employees when they have been asking for it for over 2 years.
Pros: Like may large corporations IBM is no different it is very easy to either get lost in the crowd and be paid for the 40 hours you expect to commit, or you can work hard and quickly be recognized for your contributions. The time off is great overall, you essentially have 3 weeks of paid time off, and have the option to choose which holidays you take off.
Cons: First and foremost when being offered a salary consider the fact that at most you will receive on an annual basis is a 4% increase, and that is if you are part of the top 1%-5% of employees. I suggest you ask for a salary you will be comfortable with for the next 3 years. It is also extremely political, and will overwork and undervalue their hardest working employees. I was essentially promised a role when I first moved into management, leading other departmental managers. However, I have been placed in the same role for nearly 2 years with the same responsibilities I was promised and then some. I not only have ~20 people reporting directly to me, but I also manage 2 other team leaders.
Advice to Senior Management: Layoffs happen, that's the nature of the business; however, be methodical about who is released, and not what their role is. I have seen a number of great employees leave, and a number of employees who will be with the company until they retire who should've been let go years ago.
Pros: Good product offering and customers usually want to hear from you. Working from home is becoming pretty standard for most jobs.
Cons: This is a huge company and the disconnect between upper management and everyone else is impressive at times. I think I'd have a better chance of seeing the Pope in person than our CEO. Big changes (base pay reductions, org changes) can be pushed down in an arbitrary fashion with sometimes little rationale. Even managers 3 or 4 levels up don't seem to know what is going on at times. Politics is just as important as the quality of your work, so know that going in.
Advice to Senior Management: Take the time to meet with employees occasionally. Attend more big customer or internal conferences just so people know you are a real people.
Pros: Good benefits, good time off and work life balancing. Decent salaries but they will plateau. Non-management personnel have some exceptional people to work with.
Cons: Hit a glass ceiling; difficult management for technical people to work with. Work continually increasing and fewer people to handle it. Constant push to do more than be excellent at the job you are assigned. Enough is never enough. Lack of education and new opportunities.
Advice to Senior Management: Come to understand the technical resources needed for major initiatives. The employees are dedicated to doing their best but they are not magicians.
Pros: None, absolutely none!. Formal shell of a once true industry leader (1983-1997). Today driven by politics and mid-level management incompetence. Culture seeded with just bill the client through fake workstreams resourced by arrogance and poor people skilled workforce. Hires based upon a smile.
Cons: Pay is not competitive with todays IT market. To upcoming graduates you can grow your careers with non-toxic seed. Management does not value the human factor of work-life balance. "Double, triple and quadruple duplicitous culture constantly creates poor customer satisfaction and senseless confusion. Stay away!
Advice to Senior Management: Find the old core and bring to the market. Your customers will view you as a true valued business partner!
Pros: IBM still has global-scale, uniquely deep, broad, powerful technology solutions to sell, capable of solving some world's biggest business problems. As of March 2014, no other IT company that I'm aware of has the combination of right-on multi-year depth of vision (built by IBM Research), breadth of portfolio (software, services, Softlayer cloud delivery model), and senior management willingness to pivot to "IBM-as-a-Service" cloud delivery business model, while quickly leaving behind IBM businesses that aren't going to perform with high margins as the world + technology changes. There are very very bright people that are working very hard to pull this off.
Cons: The trick is to find, understand, get in tune with, embed oneself in the right projects with the right people, that are in the forefront of where IBM is headed. That can't be done by oneself - you have to know (or be taught be those who do know) where to look. IBM is a huge machine, without this insight / help from IBMers who know, it's easy for one to become lost as just one cog in huge wheel. IBM doesn't often / always move quickly enough in all areas...but if you're in the right place / technology / team, IBM's huge resources / global scale / market presence can make up for it.
Pros: Working with talented and dedicated people that do whatever it takes to get the job done. Working on client sites and getting experience in different industries.
Cons:
Advice to Senior Management: Start treating employees as you would want yourself treated...with respect.
Pros: Decent salaries, decent benefits, great co-workers and everyone takes care of business.
Cons: Executive management seems to have no clue. Blindly cutting folks that are needed just to make their numbers look good.
Advice to Senior Management: Get a clue. Employees are not working to kill time, they are working to make a living. You need to motivate. We are self motivated to a point, but you can surely help. Motivation does not come from job cuts and taking away benefits (pensions and more) and earned bonuses. You should take the cuts. You are the reason for the results. You cannot grow revenue when selling off parts of the business. I won't make in a lifetime what you make in a year.
The tech company ranked as the No. 1 ideal employer for undergraduates pursuing degrees in business or computer science and IT, No. 2 for humanities and liberal arts students and No. 3 for engineers (behind Boeing and NASA). It even snagged the No. 6 spot for natural-science students, behind the obvious picks of the National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Cancer Society and Environmental Protection Agency. (See the full rankings here.)
Editor's note: IBM's ranking are as follows:
A number of insurers sell their plans under names like Select, Preferred, Premier, Exclusive, Enhanced, Essential, Essential Plus, Prime, Ultimate and Deluxe. Multiple offerings from one company may have the same benefits and cover the same share of a consumer’s costs, but go by different names.
“Sometimes the names are downright deceptive,” said Betsy M. Imholz, a lawyer at Consumers Union. “Calling a plan ‘exclusive’ makes it sound super-duper, but it may mean that you have a very limited choice of doctors or hospitals.”
Hubert B. Gesenhues of Las Vegas, a computer technician who has been researching his insurance options, said the names were, for the most part, “marketing gibberish.” They obscure the fact that many plans do not pay for treatments until consumers have spent thousands of dollars of their own money, he said.
Example: I was RA'ed last July. I immediately continued with COBRA, with the idea of signing up for Medicare immediately before COBRA coverage ended. Wrong move! I had a medical problem for which I tried to use my COBRA, and the claim was denied three times. I called IBM and they told me that I should have used Medicare, because IBM COBRA was "secondary". I said that I have not signed up yet for Medicare. They said that IBM ASSUMES that I had signed up for Medicare. Claim denied.
Net result is that I paid for six months of COBRA and was never able to use it to file a claim. Best advice: if you worked for IBM sign up for Medicare as soon as you lose your job. Don't let them do it to you twice. -namecnassianer-
I can only speak for IBM workers in the Hudson Valley; the IBM jobs we have provide a very generous salary that cannot be matched in many other places. We have lived here all our lives, bought homes, raised our families. This is why drawing unwelcome management attention in support of a union keeps us away—we are willing to keep taking it on the chin so we can afford to keep our homes and feed our families.
I am in support of a union but am tired of the comments for being too 'weak' to unionize. I would have been willing to canvas the entire Poughkeepsie site to get folks to join, but can you guarantee that I won't come across that one employee who would go to my manager and blow the whistle on me? I will always put that paycheck first to support my family.
I challenge any other older worker like myself who had 30-35+ years and was let go. How is life now? Can you survive on your pension in the Hudson Valley? Wish you still had your full-time paycheck? I was not weak but trying to survive. This is why back in the day when folks were on site handing out union fliers we were too afraid to take one for fear of being seen taking one by some snitch or manager. -anonymous-
Alliance reply: We're sorry for your job loss. There have been many IBMers that have lost their job, anyway, whether they were organizing openly, or not. Most every member that has done organizing inside IBM has risked their job. There just isn't any other way to gather people together and fight back. We DO understand your situation. We have several members that feel the same as you do. Those members have joined Alliance and paid dues and continue to send us information about what is going on in IBM; especially during mass firings. This is a tremendous help. If you can support us with a donation or a $5.00/month associate membership, that would help too. Thank you for your support.
Most of the people I started with have been resourced and none of them ever went public if they were an Alliance supporter. As long as we are afraid of taking a stand we will get what we deserve. If they decide to RA me at least I can say I tried to help my fellow employees. I now mentor new hires to get their contacts in the industry, polish the resume and get out. -Still a Public member-
Based on the ease of transition to an Israeli company, over Saudi's Global Foundries, the match of RF applications, the fact that TowerJazz will be able to corner the market, eliminate its competitor, and would be in a position to be the #1 supplier of custom RF/SiGe,and CSOI applications (and IBM could get a better price) leads to a logical conclusion TowerJazz will be part of or owning the Burlington site in the near future. In any event, IBM is selling this plant. It won't be long until we all know the new owners/partners. -JazzOrGlobal-
This site is designed to allow IBM Employees to communicate and share methods of protecting their rights through the establishment of an IBM Employees Labor Union. Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act states it is a violation for Employers to spy on union gatherings, or pretend to spy. For the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act, notice is given that this site and all of its content, messages, communications, or other content is considered to be a union gathering.