back to article Tata for now: Marks & Spencer transfers 250 tech jobs to outsourcer

Middle-class nirvana Marks & Spencer – the British purveyor of classy date-night grub and frumpy clothes – is slashing its tech supplier base and sending 250 staff to Tata Consultancy Services under an IT outsourcing accord. The High Street giant will pay a one-time "implementation cost" of £25m to offload delivery and …

  1. a_yank_lurker

    Bankruptcy Soon?

    Why do I have a feeling someone is heading to bankruptcy soon? Farming out your IT staff is a fools errand as you will lose control over them with time as the contractor moves staff around. In house staff means you have control and they are also only working on your projects.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bankruptcy Soon?

      Why do I have a feeling someone is heading to bankruptcy soon?

      I very much doubt that M&S will be bankrupt soon. Sales have held up over the past five years (all things considering) although profits have been coming down fast. Costs will be slashed, the profits will have an uptick, and we'll then see further slow decline until they establish an equilibrium position for their high street presence (unless everybody wants to buy their clothing via the internet, which I doubt).

      And whilst I'm usually a vociferous opponent of outsourcing, I think things are a tad different for high street retailers. Long ago, retailers abandoned vertical integration, and outsourced manufacturing, first to local manufacturers, and progressively across the globe; Their business is not IT driven (whereas an energy or telecoms supplier, or an Amazon is), and good IT is not really a critical success factor. So where M&S management are is as follows:

      1) Real success is about fashion sense (for their target market), quality, value and store service.

      2) IT is an evil necessity, and a cost. Being mediocre or worse is not going to harm them, whereas failing to manage purchasing, style, logistics, supply chains, and store stock levels will.

      3) On line clothes and shoe retailing is a PITA - all about small deliveries, thin margins, shrinkage, and very high return rates, so not an attractive niche for a high street chain

      4) Profits have crashed, so they're looking to cut all and any costs (hopefully they can also dump their sanctimonious Plan A marketing).

      In the longer term outsourcing will bring problems for them. But if it isn't something they need to be good and quick at, and they've already outsourced product making to India, Vietnam et al, then why not outsource the IT there as well?

      Sympathies to the poor beggars being TUPE'd.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Bankruptcy Soon?

        "1) Real success is about fashion sense (for their target market), quality, value and store service.

        2) IT is an evil necessity, and a cost. Being mediocre or worse is not going to harm them, whereas failing to manage purchasing, style, logistics, supply chains, and store stock levels will."

        To the extent that IT supports store service, logistics, supply chains and store level it would be best just to regard it as a necessity rather than an evil one. Let it drift and all the things it supports also drift a bit.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Not A Good Idea

      These aren't just hacks - these are M&S hacks .... < warm fuzzy glow = on >

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, if the staff don't like this particular TUPE, at least they can take it back.

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    The Beeb's report pointed out that M&S are having problems competing with other online retainers. Outsourcing your operation seems a really, really good idea in the circumstances.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Nothing to do with the online store being a poor design that is hard to navigate, unlike the old style website,

      1. PeterM42
        Trollface

        Absolutely

        "Nothing to do with the online store being a poor design that is hard to navigate, unlike the old style website," Well said! - My other half is always moaning about their website.

  5. djstardust

    Nothing works at M&S

    In our local branch (Aberdeen) all the auto tills at the sandwich area have been out of order for ages. Some got fixed but they don't have the staff to man them.

    That means for a quick sandwich you need to go to the other side of the store and wait in a massive queue to pay at staffed tills, which are also understaffed.

    Funny how there are loads of "clipboards in suits" walking around but no staff to , you know, take money from customers.

    M&S lost it a long time ago. Another one on my bankruptcy list.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: Nothing works at M&S

      My problerm's the reverse: except for absolute peak times, the food hall in the big M&S near me is all DIY tills. I actually need someone to help me (non-visible but very real disability), so I've stopped food shopping there, because being in a queue for the single human teller isn't something I have time for and DIY is not an option. And yet, if they just had a human about who didn't begrudge helping someone at a service till, I'd do most of my weekly shop there.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing works at M&S

      "Funny how there are loads of "clipboards in suits" walking around but no staff to , you know, take money from customers."

      I've always thought that companies should be there, taking your money as fast as they can. The few companies that I have seen that had trouble with that went out of business. Don't make your customers wait longer to pay than they did to shop...

  6. knarf

    Customer Data

    Hope they are going to ask all their customer if getting all the data serviced in India is acceptable

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And it is reported that there is an IT Skills shortage

    Well, apparently this boss of a Software Company from Cornwall was blathering on about on 'Wake Up to money' on Radio 5 this morning.

    Yeah right. Pull the other one son.

    My job has been 'sent to India' twice now. No one wants a roll up the sleeves, do anything software developer with 40+ years of experience these days. I've basically given up trying to find a job and am waiting until I turn 65 in a couple of months. I'm not alone in having years of experience in a wide range of technogies but are basically unemployable. I've met at least 10 others like me at stupid courses like 'CV writing' that we have to attend.

    This boss was bemoaning the fact that it takes around 10 years to train someone up properly yet there is all this talent going to waste.

    Could I relocate to Cornwall?

    I'd love to but I have an aged mother to consider and won't move from her home in Hastings.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: And it is reported that there is an IT Skills shortage

      I outsource certain kinds of dev work to a small firm who has devs in UK, Hungary, New Zealand, etc, and the work gets farmed out and all these people (mostly) work from home doing my specialist dev stuff for me. If you could find a gig like that, your years of experience would be a boon.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And it is reported that there is an IT Skills shortage

        I wonder what will happen to your software, say, in five years time?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And it is reported that there is an IT Skills shortage

      Amen brother. Almost your age with a metric crap-ton (yes, that's a proposed new El Reg UoM) of experience in everything from systems to storage to networking, and it took me almost seven months to find a job when the company I worked for got acquired and they laid off everyone making a decent salary.

      At my new place they think I'm some kind of mad genius because the stuff they're struggling with is stuff I've seen (and fixed) many times before. They act like I'm some kind of talking dog, but all it is is experience that's talking.

      Why so many are so quick to throw all this away boggles the mind.

  8. Chrissy

    Good luck with that

    "TCS will oversee the point-of-sale tech, web platform, management of tech infrastructure and projects, and oversee relations with specialist suppliers"

    If I was an M&S shop or area manager, I'd be raiding petty cash to order a lot of these:

    https://www.amazon.com/SentrySafe-Locking-Money-Medium-CB-12/dp/B000GOZZJG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515606043&sr=8-1&keywords=cashbox

    and a lot of these:

    https://www.amazon.com/Data-Systems-Manual-Imprinter-515-101-002/dp/B008UQ81S4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515606258&sr=8-1&keywords=credit+card+imprinter

    ... and a lot of pens and pencils, as by the time TCS have completed "overseeing" - LOL.... I can think of more appropriate words!! - their PoS and infra, those will be the only methods by which individual stores will be able to continue trading.

    1. Flywheel

      Re: Good luck with that

      "TCS" and "PoS" were made for each other, although some commenters may be thinking of a different meaning for the latter TLA...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Marked for diSpensing

    More jobs gone overseas, means fewer future purchases.

    To sell more clothes this coming year, open stores in India.

    Skilled workers without vocation, innovate new operation.

  10. kb 2
    Facepalm

    MAJOR OUTAGE

    Good luck with that - worked really well for British Airways as I recall. No major outages in principal data centres. Oh no.

  11. StuntMisanthrope

    Malfunction and Shutdown

    Oh dear, do I need to go and look, I can already guess. M&S IT is good, why would you want to go and ruin it in the short-term. #invisiblework #feetupsurfingalldayintheUK #twocauliflowersteaksplease

  12. Jase Prasad

    TCS have a reputation - they are the McDonald's of IT service providers

  13. Dominion

    Meh...

    The manufacture of clothing for M & S, which used to be predominantly in Britain has long since been pushed out to 3rd world sweatshops. This is just a continuation of that.

    1. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: Meh...

      Many years ago M&S used to be very famous for their clothing range, it was designed and a large amounbt was manufactured in the UK, and was good quality.

      They then decided to shave a few margins and get a lot more clothing made outside the UK (similar to its competitors) for small cost savings.

      This had a massive detrimental effect on the UK textile industry (M&S had, from position of pseudo monopoly / massive economic buying power enforced lots of exclusivity (worst case) or preferential treatment contracts with various companies, this had made those companies massively reliant on M&S, which meant those manufacturers where up the creek when M&S pulled out)

      e.g.

      http://www.execreview.com/2000/03/ms-supplier-cuts-600-scottish-jobs/

      It did not work massively well for M&S, in addition to the inevitable initial issues on quality / amount of stock, they discovered that whereas a lot of people had been happy to pay M&S premier prices when their goods were UK made, and indeed some people would choose to shop their for that reason of supporting UK manufacture, once M&S was doing the same clothes made in some other country approach as lots of other retailers, lots of customers went to these cheaper alternatives as without USP of UK manufacture they were not as inclined to pay the price premium.

      Although not as well known as e.g. Liverpool Sun boycott, plenty of people then shunned M&S for their effects on UK manufacturing.

      They did belatedly try to source more UK textiles again, but it was not very successful, as by then too many UK manufacturers were bankrupt or in such a poor financial state that they were in unstoppable spiral of decline.

      These days M&S seem more bothered about sandwiches and other food / drink products than anything else as the "food" side of operations is over half of revenue / profit.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        As you sew, so shall you reap

        Interesting that their sales reports came out at the same time. The shares are down 6% so far today.

  14. PipV
    Mushroom

    I ask myself

    What could possibly go wrong?

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Article (and press releases) not entirely accurate

    Anonymous for obvious reasons.

    The vast majority of IT at M&S was outsourced to a multitude of vendors, 8-10 years ago with the main support being by Cognizant (CTS). Most of those were taken over by TCS mid 2014. The number of local British staff has been quite small for a long time with much of M&S IT already being run out of India.

    The main change is more consolidation of support companies, but in addition, effectively the final British staff who can be outsourced have been. Overtime, as they leave their jobs almost certainly those roles will go off shore to India.

  16. Joe Harrison

    It's not just them

    Just look at the list of retailers declaring terrible results recently. Their input costs are rising due to weak pound but these costs cannot be passed on to shoppers who are unable to pay them because they have never had a wage rise since Moses was a lad. What this means is crushed margins and scrabbling about for costs to cut, which is a spiral of doom basically.

    The suffering retailers also mostly have loads of debt and it will only take an interest rate rise and/or further loss of confidence in the pound to turn the high street into a giant smoking crater. Hope I've cheered you all up.

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