DXC Technology exec: What should our brand be known for? DXC Technology exec veep and GM of the Build division Ed Ho says the organisation has yet to "define its brand" more than two years after the new corporate entity lurched into being. Ho, who runs the strategic front-end unit of DXC – which provides professional, advisory and consulting services – was addressing his staff at a …
The ability to take individual products that are good and turning them into systems or "updated products" that simultaneously suck and blow.
Any redeeming qualities of said products will be outweighed by support/consulting staff who appear bamboozled by the customers intention to use their products.
DXC started trading in April 2017 and it's only now, more than two years later, deciding on their brand? It's all a little late in the day.
From the article: "Namely, what do we want to be recognised for, and what are our differentiating capabilities." That is NOT a brand. Brands are not products, or logos for that matter - it's more about how customers feel about an organisation. Mind you, HPE thought their empty green rectangle was their brand so the organisation has form in this area.
Yes DXC, you do need to decide what do you want to be recognised for, and what are your differentiating capabilities. Problem is, your realisation that you need to do this may have come too late to save you.
To paraphrase:
"Now that we've stirred and whipped what's left of you guys and exhausted our own effectual leadership, What do you think we should do?"
Things are out of order. You ideally should have had this conversation while your staff experience was still strong. Now you decide to initiate this internal crusade with the leftovers and green seedlings of your last purge.
* Redundancy: it's not just for data anymore
* DXC: "nothing" is our middle name
* When everyone says it's impossible, DXC will take your cash up front
* It's not witchcraft, we're sinkimg
* Testing contract law since 2017
* Good, fast, cheap: we've heard of them
* Now offering flexible timetables for your projects
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I know some good people who, last I checked, were still with DXC. But they're members of small, specialized teams, little islands of quality in a sea of dreck. (In my own experience, the standard approach at DXC is "fail, but slowly".) I imagine they won't be with DXC for much longer - they'll be tempted away or forced out, if they don't just quit in disgust.
Someone decided it would be an idea to come up with some "motivational" posters but they got removed from some offices after the official text was replaced...
Cowboys Selling Computers
Cowboys Screwing Customers
Cannot Stand Customers
Comprehensively Shafting Customers
Completely Shafting Colleagues
Exactly which ancestor is left to the reader to work out...
Its down to management direction to decide what DXC stands for.
I don't know why Ho doesn't know what that is, he's close to the fire on that one.
Its quite clearly stated to investors on Day One.... maximizing shareholder value and returning several billion to investors.... aka asset strip.
What are the assets they are stripping? This comprises of two main things:
1) The most important asset a company has - its employees
2) The second most important asset a company has - its contracts with its customers.
If it wasn't for those pesky customers demanding services from DXC and therefore the requirement to hire staff to service those customers, the books would look excellent! Cheeky customers, expecting service that they pay for.
Its not an IT services company, its a solely a financial vehicle. It has no ambition to be an IT services company.
They've cut through the flesh, through the bone too and the only thing that remains remarkable is that there seemingly is a third place in this old analogy and they are cutting through that too. Gotta give them credit for pushing the boundaries somewhere I guess.
You have it so right.
If it weren't for those outrageous customer expectations that DXC actually supply services, then DXC wouldn't have to employ those wasteful cost-centers known as employees.
If only customers got with the program and simply paid vast amounts of cash to DXC without any expectations of anything in return then DXC's would would be a much better place.
The Digital (D) Transformation (X) for the Client (C) ?!?
What they do is destroy well skilled and motivated people, suck them of all their moral, do not perform any upkeep on skills and then cast them aside as the age. The leave their former workers destitute and desperate with no prospect or ability to find another job ... because they have no recent trade skills to offer and all their certifications have expired.
Anyone that remains has to deal with their exasperated and rather idiotic customers who ask for the sun, moon and stars on a regular basis but offer no information or configuration in return.
on reflection
They take good people and destroy their mental wellbeing ... that is what DXC do. The greying, hollowed husks of formerly excellent technicians and engineers now roam LinkedIn hoping to be able to apply their old and out of date certifications and experience somewhere that might last longer than a couple of years.
After having just left a contract at DXC, I found the company and its contracting partner to be pathetically incompetent. They are most definately lost.
It took 5 months to onboard me, as a temp contractor.
It took 8 weeks to pay me.
Their terms for contractors are 5 weeks in arears (who ever heard of this for contractors? I have always been paid weekly, at the most a fortnight delay).
The lifers (employed staff) are dispirited, underpaid and devmotivated, they are all hoping to be made redundent.
They take 8 weeks to renew or extends a contract, I have seen people leave site and have their accounts locked because the renewal is still with 'head office'
They strip down the on site staff delivering the service to a bare minimum which results in poor service and stress for the workforce.
Essentially they act like Michael Douglas in Wall Street, Win the deal, strip the assets, sack the employees, walk away with profit for exec's. Slash and burn methodology.
I will not take a contract with DXC ever again.
Contractor terms ar in arrears 5 weeks? You got of lightly; here in the US our contractors were paid 90 days in arrears from the invoice due date. So when a contractor / external partner was developing a minor piece of code - say, the entire credit card processing part - and their invoices were not paid at 30 days, then they, to the great delight of our customers, simply stopped working.
In once case, this caused the sudden postponement of a go-live.
Now, we all welcomed the extra time to complete the project to the customer's satisfaction, so there was a silver lining there. But it was poorly handled; DXC didn't tell our section that this was the policy; it certainly didn't tell the external partners. The contractors may have known; not sure.
Is this a DevOps thing?
Looks like DXC is motivating the devs right out the door.
Which makes sense, I suppose. DevOps is a portmanteau of "development" and "operations", and excision is one of the most common types of operation. "We were able to remove 5000 developers with good margins and no complications."
DXC have perfectly reasonable "brands" already:
BRAND new graduates to replace the thousands of experienced staff kicked out to feed shareholders and executive bonuses.
BRAND new data centers to replace those sold off under the corporate strategy of real-estate downsizing.
BRAND new second house for Mikey.
BRAND new exit contracts as failing services force customers to drop DXC at the earliest chance.
BRAND new Chief Executives because Mikey has fired all the others for questioning his master plan.
"Not only do we have work to do but we also need to define our brand. Namely, what do we want to be recognised for, and what are our differentiating capabilities. For example, do we want to be known for price, or for quality or having superior functional solutions. We've got to be able to establish that."
Well if you don't know then doomed is the only word that is going to define your business.
I'd go for having quality superior functional solutions as a practical means to virtual ends.
And it may be the case that such a facility would prove itself almighty empowering. Quite whether of an Autonomous Disposition or Not, is Oft to Appear in a Quandary for Quarry IT is Mining and Processing.
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Remember, the grass ain't greener, it's bluer™
IBM was going through a massive crisis in the 90's and being broken up. Louis V Gerstner came in and reversed the trend, preferring to adopt an approach that ita strength lay in the size and scale of the business. It turned IBM around. DXC is going through such a period too; where the leadership has focused so much on cost cutting that it's not realised it's breaking down and losing its standing in the market. DXC needs a new leader to stop this rot before DXC loses the scale it needs to compete. IBM has nearly 340,000 employees. DXC started with 170,000 (50% of IBM) but is on target to have 100,000 soon (30%) IBM. I've experienced the paralysis inside the business where even a few hundred dollars needs to be signed off by Mike Lawrie or his deputy. As an ex employee, I follow the DXC story with the kind of horrid fascination you get when watching a half squashed beetle writhing and wondering when it might die. All of us who have left expect it to collapse in a heap very soon and only wish for its survival for the sake of the livelihoods of our friends and ex colleagues still there. The best thing that could happen? IBM buy the business: get the lot for $20 a share and they'd be buying the leanest IT machine ever created.
I saw that from the opposite side of the fence.. The number 2 IT services company in the world at the time.. sold out by Ron Rottenmeyer for personal gains to the evil HP. And the fat bastage who ran it.
Combining hp and eds .. at one point over 320k employees.. before HP inserted their 'price controls'.. and stellar leadership.. couldn't order office supplies.. nix.. got a contract that requires you print reports? you have to buy your paper through HP with HP margin on it internally.. then try to add a few points so your account can actually not go all loss..
Oh and then there's that wonderful new "HP Way".. it's called screw the employees so Mark Hurd can wine and dine female contractors.. fly around the world at the corporations expense and keep sucking on the Oracle One's organ.
And here comes Leo the loser.. another spectacular flop.. the board hated him.. why did they hire him?
one of his first comments? "these employees are losers"
And I won't even begin to start on the Meg.. who makes that other famous Meg on the animated show look like the new messiah intellectually.
So as someone who has seen the same folks abused for years.. and i still have ex colleagues who work at all these derivative companies.. it's easy..
HP>EDS for cash and contracts.. thinking they could just cut cut cut and the clients wouldn't notice.
HPES>HP because HP leaders had zero farcking clue how to run a services business and finally admitted it.
DXC>HPES easy.. more money for current execs and the doughboy was foolish enough to think he suckered them.. umm.. Mike buddy.. you're not that smart. and your lawyers are even more stupid.
DXC>Perspecta cuz.. hey .. didn't we use to have a govt oriented division??? oh yeah CSRA.. but we signed a no compete.. BUT OUR NEW COMPANY DIDNT!!!!!
pure unmolested greed and stupidity at the top of all the companies..
DXC is suffering with a form of corporate anorexia. With this in mind i think it needs sympathy and patience. Unfortunately the prognosis is not great. But i take great exception at the ridicule that DXC is facing on this site.
Normally a person suffering anorexia would not be subjected to this kind of bullying.
Please show some empathy.
What should DXC be known for?
- their ability to delay any project by a factor of years
- their ability to buy a product, sack everyone who knows anything about that product, and then continue to charge exorbitant maintenance fees for technical support by people who know nothing about the product they are supporting
- over-promising and under-delivering
- incompetetnce
- their ability to project manage anything to death
- did I mention incompetence?
The sooner DXC goes belly up the better.
I worked for them for 2 years in a senior, sub-exec role and watched people leaving, being fired and just giving up, left right and center.
I do not know why customers would remain when personnel are constantly changing and the service is really bad
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