3 Hub location strategy - What do you think?

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Anonymous

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After 10+ years at J&J, I was "released" from J&J because I wasn't in one of the three hub locations and my role was moved to Raritan. No sour grapes from me, I've moved on.

But I have many colleagues who have been or will be impacted by this strategy so I wonder...

What do you think?
1. Does the 3 location strategy makes senses?
2. Will it make working with colleagues around the world easier?
3. Do you think it will disadvantage any region?
4. Do you think the OpCo's around the world will get better services from IT going forward?
 




How's that working out so far for the opcos ?? Service is the worse its ever been, Verzion sucks and can't get anything done RIGHT ever... Helpdesk is useless unless it's step 1 one troubleshooting sheet. Need I go on ????
Laverne Counsel and the LT has made a bad situation even worse. Who would have thought that was possible ?
This ship has sunk...How long before Billie Boy resigns and hopefully takes the rest of the crew with him...
One I/T is the laughing stock of J&J, along with manufacturing..Can you say "RECALL"
Seriously what a joke. I can't wait to get a package.. Please pay me my 70 weeks severance because I'm not leaving on my own..
I'm going down with the ship baby.. It's all gravy from here on out..
 




Anonymous said:
Do you think the OpCo's around the world will get better services from IT going forward?
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What services? For all practical purposes, we have written off IT as a total wreck -- toxic waste. Even senior IT managers tell us that if we want flexible and high-performance services, the best we can do now is sign a contract directly with an external service company.
 


Anonymous said:
1. Does the 3 location strategy makes senses?
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No, it doesn't make any sense at all.

As IT withdraws in its three fortresses and offers ever more limited services and ever more restrictive policies, the gap between what IT is willing to offer and what the OpCos actually need is going to grow even deeper and wider than the huge chasm that it already is.

Nature abhors a vacuum. OpCos will have two options. One option is failure. The other option is to devote part of their resources to inventing a ghost IT support system, by diverting people and money from other purposes. The vacuum will then be filled by an influx of small third-party contracts, hardware bought in grocery stores and paid for by the spare cash on departmental budgets, and the intentional purchase of systems that IT says it does not want to support -- which is increasingly regarded as an advantage, not a disadvantage.

And that is not the full extent of the damage done by the awful state of our IT services. Speaking for an OpCo, we already have a number of good people who say that they will leave if IT support does not improve rapidly. I have been interviewing for a number of new hires, but I find that I have to lie outright about the quality of IT support that they can expect, or we will lose our best candidates. And I don't want to lie.
 


Agree that OpCos are re-building their "ghost" IT organizations which JoAnn Heisen's team spent much time and energy identifying and assimilating into NCS. The problem with that is... once everything is centralized, it shines a spotlight on the true costs that were once buried in OpCo departmental budgets. Everyone then accuses the centralized organization of being too expensive.

Laverne's strategy is driving down her budget by pushing expense back out to the OpCos. She will get a huge bonus for all her savings. Meanwhile J&J as a whole will be spending more on IT services which are worse... but good luck trying to quantify that. Shame shame shame...
 


Anonymous said:
Everyone then accuses the centralized organization of being too expensive.
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Cost is not the big issue. Or rather, what IT is supplying today would be too expensive at any cost; it would be too expensive even if we were paid to use it. The real problem is that we are forced to pay for the wrong product. Nobody asks us what we want or need; nobody bothers to listen when we try to explain. We are just told that this is what we are going to have, and that we have to pay for it. J&J is the ultimate captive market for IT products.

And when we unwrap it, our unwanted buy turns out to be broken as well. Nobody of us would even dream of putting up with this dismal level of reliability, performance and service for our private use.
 


Anonymous said:
Cost is not the big issue. Or rather, what IT is supplying today would be too expensive at any cost; it would be too expensive even if we were paid to use it. The real problem is that we are forced to pay for the wrong product. Nobody asks us what we want or need; nobody bothers to listen when we try to explain. We are just told that this is what we are going to have, and that we have to pay for it. J&J is the ultimate captive market for IT products.

And when we unwrap it, our unwanted buy turns out to be broken as well. Nobody of us would even dream of putting up with this dismal level of reliability, performance and service for our private use.
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Great anology.
 


Whilst I can sort of understand the concept of centralising what we have in house and moving them to key locations, I am not convinced it is as simple as it sounds. Especially as nearly all work is done offshore (India) and nearly all management and decision are made in NA. It leaves the question - why have EMEA and ASPAC hubs and not just go the whole hog and have NA and offsore only?

I work with ASPAC, EMEA and NA and I can see ASPAC suffering already.

It seems the folks in Sydney were let go before a team in Singapore were skilled up - if there is actually going to be a team in Sydney? I have heard rumours that that may not be the case and the numbers will be very limited.
 


Anonymous said:
Whilst I can sort of understand the concept of centralising what we have in house and moving them to key locations, I am not convinced it is as simple as it sounds. Especially as nearly all work is done offshore (India) and nearly all management and decision are made in NA. It leaves the question - why have EMEA and ASPAC hubs and not just go the whole hog and have NA and offsore only?
Click to expand...

J&J has unprecedented terrible, terrible senior "leadership" team. It would be better for J&J if they play golf every day than come to work and make lousy, nonsense decisions one after another.

I stopped making sense of what is happening around us a few years back. I vent my frustration here is because I do care about J&J, which used to be a great, well-respected company.
 




Anonymous said:
J&J has unprecedented terrible, terrible senior "leadership" team. It would be better for J&J if they play golf every day than come to work and make lousy, nonsense decisions one after another.

I stopped making sense of what is happening around us a few years back. I vent my frustration here is because I do care about J&J, which used to be a great, well-respected company.
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Of course its the worst senior leadership team ever because of course you can do better. The whiners on these boards are all so darn brilliant - they can solve every problem out there. Such a collection of leaders we have on these boards with their sniping and complaining. The thought leadership that it takes to insult and disparage people behind their backs represents the type of character employees that solve problems.

Yeah like any of you could actually do better. Don't like your job or the leadership team here that isn't going anywhere then QUIT. Quit your jobs - bunch of sniveling babies.
 


Anonymous said:
Yeah like any of you could actually do better. Don't like your job or the leadership team here that isn't going anywhere then QUIT. Quit your jobs - bunch of sniveling babies.
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Unfortunately, if all the intelligent people decide that they have had enough and leave, J&J will be stuck with idiots like you, and that means that it will inevitably head for a rapid collapse. Perhaps as an employee I should have stopping caring about that long ago; as the owner of shares and stock options I would at least have an objective reason to regret it.

And what about the patients? It is easy to be cynical, but I am in this job because I do believe that in the pharma industry, we can and should help patients. Instead I am forced to waste a vast amount of time on damage control -- damage done by our own management.
 


Force all people to work from or commute to high cost of living areas.
Make presentation slide 1 on how much this captive workforce costs.
Make presentation slide 2 on how much an outsourced workforce saves.
Applause, applause.
Standards of Leadership award.
Everyone wins.
Except the ITS employees.
And the business IT partners.
And the business.
But, hey, the numbers look great in the spreadsheet and doesn't that SOL look marvelous on your wall?
 


The irony of the whole thing is absolutely insane.

You have JC and LC receiving awards for women workforce initiatives; yet the mother of three just lost her J&J job because she didn't live in the "correct" location. That mother was told J&J was doing her a favor. She would get to live in the same location as her manager and that would help her career. I think if she had the choice she would rather have the employment than see her manager more often.

Why do we have compass, global connect, etc.? What ever happened to desktop video? We can't implement something our teenagers use every day?

You have J&J receiving awards for Diversity from Diversity Inc., yet we don't even acknowledge our own diversity policies. Go to the J&J Diversity home page and find Geographic Location on the diversity wheel. It is supposed to be equally regarded as religion, sexual orientation, and marital status. I'm glad no one will be let go because of how they like it in bed, but many have been because of where they live.

The whole thing was just a smoke screen for a reduction in workforce and to blame something else and spin wheels on another initiative while no one pays attention to the real issues.

The operating companies are already starting their cowboy IT antics. I can't blame them. It's either that or not get products out the door.
 


To your point above I am amazed that there aren't any class action lawsuits for all of these actions. The credo is akin to a legal contract and management has blatenly violated it. Those that are moving to NJ especially in operational positions really need to be careful. There is a real chance your position will be eliminated over the next two years. You may think The company would never pay for a move only to let you go but you are incorrect. The 50k they are spending is a drop in the bucket versus the billion dollar annual overall IT budget.
 


Anonymous said:
Cost is not the big issue. Or rather, what IT is supplying today would be too expensive at any cost; it would be too expensive even if we were paid to use it. The real problem is that we are forced to pay for the wrong product. Nobody asks us what we want or need; nobody bothers to listen when we try to explain. We are just told that this is what we are going to have, and that we have to pay for it. J&J is the ultimate captive market for IT products.

And when we unwrap it, our unwanted buy turns out to be broken as well. Nobody of us would even dream of putting up with this dismal level of reliability, performance and service for our private use.
Click to expand...

Best post of the week... Well said
 


Anonymous said:
Those that are moving to NJ especially in operational positions really need to be careful. There is a real chance your position will be eliminated over the next two years. You may think The company would never pay for a move only to let you go but you are incorrect.
Click to expand...

Even more surprising are those who decide to relocate to Raritan with no financial assistance from the company, other than having a job waiting for them there. That's putting an awfully large amount of faith in an IT leadership team and strategy that recently seems completely indifferent to the departure of staff by whatever means (Pushed or jumped). I concur with your two year theory - I would not be surprised at all if it goes that way and only a shadow of the former organisation remains internally to "Vendor manage" things.
 


Anonymous said:
Even more surprising are those who decide to relocate to Raritan with no financial assistance from the company, other than having a job waiting for them there. That's putting an awfully large amount of faith in an IT leadership team and strategy that recently seems completely indifferent to the departure of staff by whatever means (Pushed or jumped). I concur with your two year theory - I would not be surprised at all if it goes that way and only a shadow of the former organisation remains internally to "Vendor manage" things.
Click to expand...

I agree with your observation. All the remote staff with marketable skills decided to take the package and leave in my group. It is harsh to say but I pity those folks who decided to relocate at their own cost for the miserable jobs. Perhaps they see something most of us don't. Perhaps they are betting on the leadership changes that will restore J&J and ITS to the prior dignity. Hope they are right.
 



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