I have a feeling that's what everybody in charge is convinced is true and are making their decisions accordingly. I'm personally not so sure...
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maybe the BOD and execs are trying to make it fail - just think what happens to the share the price on a take over, its normally very inflated. look what IBM paid for red hat - Cisco for App dynamics well over the odds, the people with lots of shares where the winners, and of course those at the top. bottom feeders have to pick up after its all over.
It SHOULDN'T be, but it probably would get bailed out (courtesy of the taxpayer) when the need eventually arises.
Actually IBM is "TOO DUMB TO SURVIVE".
I hopped through 3 competitors before landing in IBM. I can confirm they are the only ones to put this badge c-ap and career model as obstacles to promotion. At other companies I had a utilization metric and a quota. Very simple to promote when you have actually grown the business. This badge c-ap doesn’t ensure that the right people are promoted.
@dzqd, you are spot on... especially regarding career model, certification program and badges...
Who in IBM can in their own mind put up with this sh–? IBM must be the only company doing this.
It's not are they too big to fail, it's are they too big spot succeed?
Ibm is a massively bloated monstrosity that's carrying around huge baggage. Everything from dead end tech that still has cash flow (but consumes attention and limits investment) like websphere, to niche stuff that's profitable but won't grow like mainframe, to services that are mediocre. Add in hr stuff like the worthless career model and certification program (anyone but ibmers put their badges on LinkedIn?), and on and on. Maybe elephants can dance, but Ibm moves into the dead whale territory years ago. It'll take a long time to completely rot away, but the stink is there.
How can they possibly justify promoting staff?
Bain needs to really dive in and "fix the glitch"
Every year more and more overhead roles appear yet the business hasn’t grown. 150 new GBS partners announced about a month ago. An even larger number of APs emerge twice yearly, via promotion and outside hire. Not to mention the “Distinguished Engineers” announced every year. How can they possibly justify promoting staff? And the rest of us get 1.5% pay rises if we’re lucky. The US federal government gets cost of living increases, around 2-3%. We’re not even asking for much more than to keep our pay in line with inflation and IBM can’t even do that, let alone give incentive pay. But keep promoting partners, APs, and DEs, see what good a bloated overhead workforce does for you when you have nobody motivated to deliver. No wonder the company is in the toilet.
That's what we thought about GE. Just like GE they will die the death of 1,000,000 stupid mistakes driven by blockhead CEO's who won their respective "beauty pageants" to get their jobs.
IBM who ?
AOL was too big to fail and look what happened.
Remember what we learned in 2008. Nothing is too big to fail. Some things are so important the government will bail them out but IBM is not on that list. In fact I think IBM's competitors are now the important companies that the government would support.
Xbo - you nailed it perfectly.
IBM has already failed... so we are already passed that... the question now is whether it will be acquired or shut down its doors in the next 10 years. This company is moribond.
Agree with others- who cares if IBM fails?
Everyone at the SVP level up are close to retirement. Their pay packets don’t take a hit with bad company performance. So they’ll take their millions and retire soon enough.
The next level down- GM level- here you get a mix of some younger staff. But similarly, their pay packets don’t take a hit with bad company performance. I haven’t seen a single GM set a clear strategy with targets. So they’re just coasting until they take the SVP positions as they open up, rinse and repeat.
Things get more interesting at the MD/VP level. Here you have a younger mix of outside hires and people who have stuck around long enough to ride a promotion wave. But there are simply too many people at this level, and they have overlapping spans of control, and none of them want to get their hands dirty. So no work gets done. But this is the level that pinches the staff below. Because we all have to make the VPs look good at all costs right?
Now you come to B10/Partner level. This is a wide spread of ages, outside hires who don’t understand the business, internal promotes who were some VPs “favorite” and who got some help with making their numbers look good, and people who got lucky on the right account who was buying during their cycle. They only repeat behaviors they see from above. Partners in the CICs are eager to build a hierarchy and just hire recklessly with no pipeline of work to justify it. This is also the level where innovation gets squashed. Because why should they challenge the status quo? They’re just waiting for the next spot at VP level to open up, rinse and repeat.
Now we come to B9. This should be the level in which we invest the most. Give these people teams to help them deliver. Give them B&P budgets to spend on their clients. Give them R&D funds to innovate. Yet every B9 knows they are paid less than their peers externally, and they have less power than a B9 peer at another company. The good ones are all preparing to leave.
B8 and below are just lost completely. Other companies invest in this staff with training and leadership development opportunities. We give them “badges” which are mandatory, but they have to do on their own time.
It’s very simple to see how this problem could be fixed, but it starts with penalizing poor performance at the top.
Who cares is IBM fails... certainly the executives don't care... They are making millions while it lasts like at any other companies. If IBM fails, some other companies will pick up the pieces and move on.