I was brought in as a contractor (at a very high hourly rate) for a project that turned out to be the remains of a merger and restructuring. I immediately encountered sabotage, but failed to recognize it. My desktop computer mysteriously proved unable to allow me to do my assigned work. Other IT people told me it was fine and that I simply didn't know how to do my job. Well, after three weeks I located someone from another part of the company who said he'd look into my difficulties. "This system's hosed! No wonder you can't do anything," he said. He fixed it. Suddenly I could access the working version of the data for my project, instead of the stubbed version I'd previously been seeing. My contract was ended two days later.
I still have no idea what my actual purpose was in that crazy exercise.
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Well, if only focus on the bad stuff mentioned (and much more) would describe my company's merger.
Big conglomerate, buys us and our competitor, Not so well performing company and great performing company, mergers both, keeps low performing company exec team.
Great performing company had all its employees engaged in the decision making and running the company. Now only VP and above makes all decisions even technology, which sometimes replaces already working good with something bad, then eventually gets scraped because someone higher up saw it somewhere else or read about it.
Were expected to consolidate all redundant systems in one year, was decided without asking anyone how can do it. then was 18 months, now many years later, a few but not most.
For one, they saw it as having twice the staff, so some had to go, not accounting for twice the systems and devices and applications, now understaffed projects got behind. Having the redundant systems remaining they did not realize the cost saving quick enough, more people had to go, more project got behind, no more consolidation.
Now, are outsourcing many IT operations and other company AP, billing, etc but were keeping key personnel. The ones that are good, are leaving regardless now, way many more than the company thought would, and they are puzzled as to why.
The comments from the top are the company will meet EBIDA numbers regardless, this is their only focus, and will be as they one day are going out of business, and they still not know why.
I am looking forward to getting in with another start-up, innovating, growing company and not looking back.
Big conglomerate, buys us and our competitor, Not so well performing company and great performing company, mergers both, keeps low performing company exec team.
Great performing company had all its employees engaged in the decision making and running the company. Now only VP and above makes all decisions even technology, which sometimes replaces already working good with something bad, then eventually gets scraped because someone higher up saw it somewhere else or read about it.
Were expected to consolidate all redundant systems in one year, was decided without asking anyone how can do it. then was 18 months, now many years later, a few but not most.
For one, they saw it as having twice the staff, so some had to go, not accounting for twice the systems and devices and applications, now understaffed projects got behind. Having the redundant systems remaining they did not realize the cost saving quick enough, more people had to go, more project got behind, no more consolidation.
Now, are outsourcing many IT operations and other company AP, billing, etc but were keeping key personnel. The ones that are good, are leaving regardless now, way many more than the company thought would, and they are puzzled as to why.
The comments from the top are the company will meet EBIDA numbers regardless, this is their only focus, and will be as they one day are going out of business, and they still not know why.
I am looking forward to getting in with another start-up, innovating, growing company and not looking back.
Wow... you didn't work where I do, did you? That sounds exactly like what happened here.
Seldom there are "mergers of equals", although for tax and investor purposes many mergers are labeled that. The "winning" company in the merger decides what goes and what stays, usually for political purposes - if a solution from the other company is superior and gets adopted, it may be hard to explain why it wasn't implemented in the winning company to start with. The result is a paradox: the winning company is sabotaging the project by hiding the short-comings of the selected solution while the "loosing" company cooperates in all aspects under the naive assumption that decisions will be based on merit!
Remember, there is no failure until someone has the courage to call the project a failure - and provide the necessary explanations what went wrong. In most cases it is a lot easier to hide the failures and pretend everything is working fine and present the necessary fixes as "enhancements" that require additional time and budget.
If you start in the loosing company, survival in these conditions is probably impossible. It is important to realize the fact early, cooperate as much as possible (you cant cooperate if you are not asked to or your opinion is ignored), see if you might get some consulting work in the transition phase and plan for the future there are other companies out there.
Remember, there is no failure until someone has the courage to call the project a failure - and provide the necessary explanations what went wrong. In most cases it is a lot easier to hide the failures and pretend everything is working fine and present the necessary fixes as "enhancements" that require additional time and budget.
If you start in the loosing company, survival in these conditions is probably impossible. It is important to realize the fact early, cooperate as much as possible (you cant cooperate if you are not asked to or your opinion is ignored), see if you might get some consulting work in the transition phase and plan for the future there are other companies out there.
"... and be prepared to pay"
Having been a software vendor whose solution was "the loser" during a merger of our customer with another company, we were not surprised that the merged company wanted our help to migrate to "the winner". They were quite put-out when we said that we would charge for such a service, and refused to pay. They ended up trying to handle it as "Support".
Having been a software vendor whose solution was "the loser" during a merger of our customer with another company, we were not surprised that the merged company wanted our help to migrate to "the winner". They were quite put-out when we said that we would charge for such a service, and refused to pay. They ended up trying to handle it as "Support".
Having recently gone thru a company split, I can say they aren't any easier either. Lack of communication, costs overruns, and missed deadlines galor. For costs reasons, many projects are still just now being completed as the price factor required them to be done piece by piece by piece. If management can't afford to split a company, it shouldn't be split!
Just a way of life. You can't pile/duplicate/create redundant resources (people) and expect to be a smooth transition. You can only hope you land on the "winning" side of things and retain control and influence.
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