On Consulting in Corporate from a transitioned OUT employee
My experience was dreadful when it comes to this story. In 2004, Aon Group announced that it was considering (just that word) outsourcing support with vendors such as CSC and CGI. The internal staff, working our tails off, were assured that it was only a passing fancy of management. That was the first lie. The second came when they narrowed the field down to CSC and CGI - the latter being a firm only 1/10 the size of mighty CSC. Second Lie. In August of 2004, the CTO and the CIO convinced the chairman to sign off a $600 million deal with CSC. It was such a good deal in fact that the CTO and CIO sold all of their Aon stock and quit the very next day. True enough. The internal staff was then fed a mountain of lies by CSC, who told us we had a brilliant career ahead of us, treating us as new employees when we had a solid track record with our old employer, same building and job. It was just weird. For 14 months we slaved away under new management and when CSC overcharged Aon by only $200 million and so CSC (to save the contract) fired all 140 internal staffers. OH we were offered re-employment by Banctec (a truly awful company). This scum outfit made offers to just 40 people, so bad were they that only 10 accepted. Why just 40? To avoid the Federal WARN act that requires 60 days severance if you fire more than 100 staffers at a shot.
So, I am jaded here. First, if you are fired or transitioned, you are gone. No matter what lies they tell you, you are history. Believe it. No matter how much you may think your job skill and talent are irreplacable, management doesn't know that. They see an older, overpaid employee when a young, dumb kid or, worse, Bangalore can do the same job (it's only IT, right?) for 1/10 the salary cost.
His wonderful attempts to justify his work meant nothing in the long haul. I had the support of VERY SENIOR MANAGEMENT in our local office. ExVP and up. Did not matter. CSC wanted cheaper, BancTec works with cheap so they brought in kids who did not know how to open a Dell desktop, did not know backups, thought Lotus Notes email files could fit on a floppy and, in one case, previously delivered Pizza to homes on his resume. True.
I did some work for Aon executives who paid me out of their own pocket, did not last long but it was delightful revenge money. They wanted me back big time but HOW could I invoice Chicago? Would not fly at all.
So, while his efforts to justify his work were valid and well presented, possibly too well presented for the pinhead American management that we now have that things Bangalore is all things great and wonderful in IT, he was still doomed.
Pardon me for my outsourcing rant.
