Wake up Corporate management! The current disorganization structure from 1951 no longer fits the business, and hasn’t for decades.
CSW business with its' high complexity, low volume product mix can not function with the current organizational structure. The misfits you’ve had running the place have/had no idea that that is the case and will do all they can to hold on to their empires if they remain. Power hungry incompetents have no vision for running a business. They only concern themselves with power, and my, how it corrupts. They are blind to their folly. The question for L-3 Corporate is, how many hundreds of millions are you willing to lose before a better organizational structure is employed? Or, are you going to let the business decrease to the point that the old outdated organization will fit a business that is 10% of last years’ revenue? Having huge engineering and operations organizations with small business organizations (led by incompetent boobs) does not work and will not work with the product mix. Extremely large organizations take on independent lives governed by their corrupt internal politics. Organization members know that pleasing whoever is up the chain of command will get them greater rewards than focusing on the product, service and/or customer. Authority easily corrupts supervisors and managers, directors, VP's and Presidents and attention to producing quality products and services take a distant back seat to they corporate ladder climb. And as a result customers suffer disappointment and are motivated to either find a new supplier or bring their communications work internal to their firms. Thus the layoffs. While at the same time, the internal politics grow more important than customer satisfaction, especially as business decreases. It has become a madhouse. The current org structure works to produce a state of frenzied chaos, conflicting personnel, dirty politics, empire building, power mongering, abuse of power, subservient behavior and a constant state of fear. The values of the organization have been severely corrupted. It’s sick. Wearing a blue shirt, or a suit and shiny shoes is seen as more important than performance. Reorganize into a small number of Business Units. Structure the organization around groups of products and customers. Make them profit centers and measure their customer satisfaction and profitability. Distribute the engineers and much of the operations departments. Distribute the marketing, contracts and program accounting personnel too. Certain non-contract specific functions should stay where they are, like pay role, common production centers (CCA build and metal fab, and on) facilities, etc where efficiencies can be achieved. But all personnel dedicated to the business units need to be distributed. Think of it as businesses within the business. Be prepared for the corrupted power mongers will resist and do all they can to undermine the effort. Sharpen your cleavers boys.
As recent events have clearly shown, it is impossible for a set of a dozen or so, “executives” to run such a complex division as CSW. They are feeble and incompetent and too arrogant to see the foolishness of their situation. They have made many, many poor decisions. They valued posing as “executive material” more than finding a better way to organize the business. As political animals, all decisions are based on how it would make them look good with a bonus if they could make other competing executives look bad. With the complexity of the products, the contracts, and the customer circumstance, the vendors, and so many parts, and so many problems, the complexity of managing that overwhelmed them. The issues were too complex for them to fully understand, they over simplified things, they missed to nuance, applied favoritism, and simply guessed at what to do. The financial results speak for themselves. It’s a tragic story of business failure. But lessons can be learned from failure. Don’t try the same thing again and expect different results. Seriously, organize into functioning business units, not the BS disorganized mess that has destroyed this division.
PS: There should be a separate R&D department working on next generation offerings that are better than the competitions. IRAD should do more than design the things left out of proposals. If you want to be a world-class organization you need to invest in technology. Isn't that an interesting concept?