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its_my_birthday posted:yeah i work in one of the branches of government I once worked in a large governmental organisation which was about what you'd expect - some good people, lots of people just counting their days, petty wars about petty matters, poor resourcing , no ambition or possibility of improving our processes or technology. Then it was announced that we were to be merged with a dozen other governmental organisations to form one big mega-efficient organisation. And all hell broke loose. The leadership promised to "keep everyone informed" and "consult with staff" presumably to forestall an exodus of staff. Regular town halls were held that said nothing (still under consideration, much to be decided, details to be determined, blah blah). One day they presented a diagram of a proposed new organisational structure, which was just our old structure with some names changed slightly. When this was pointed out, they harrumphed and said no, it's entirely different, a fresh bold new structure fit for leading us into the 21st century. By the way, it was 2012. Those in the higher ranks started visibly jockeying for positions in the new organisation. Middle ranks got scared at the fallout and started doing things like changing their own job titles and unit names, in the hope that it would stick. If you referred to them by their actual title, they'd email back at lightning speed, hey, you seem to have made a mistake, haha, no problem but we're actually the Unit For X. They were trying to migrate their units across the organisational tree to more secure locations. Eventually the new leader of Mega-Organisation was selected and came around to press the flesh and give motivational talks to each unit. 5 minutes into his talk to our unit, it became clear that he had no idea who we were or what we did. Subsequently, a "strategic plan" was issued, giving a vision and way forward for Mega-Organisation and what it would do. We weren't mentioned. Us, our whole function and expertise, weren't mentioned. Not once. Various local leaders started dropping around to patch the damage. Hey, you see the strategic plan? Great isn't it? Uh, you might have noticed you weren't mentioned ... uh ... because there was no need to. You're so important and vital and central to everything that there was no need to mention you. It was just too obvious. You're too significant to mention. I had an opportunity to get out and took it. Most of my colleagues hung in there, hoping against all hope and evidence. They were absorbed into Mega-Organisation, split up, and most were gone within 3 years. I notice one is still there, ten years later, clinging on to some remnant of the old org, hoping to make it to retirement. Mega-Organisation turned out to be as dysfunctional and cumbersome as the smaller orgs it had replaced. Qué Sera.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:08
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cynic posted:Back in 2017 I worked for a massive company with a healthy turnover that only made money because it was shutting everything down, selling everything off and sacking every experienced person and running on 'we've got a regional monopoly what you going to do about it?' lines. Once buzzing regional offices, factories etc slowly closing down, maybe 10% of staff being cut year after year, a slow bleeding to death of 1,000 papercuts. There was - maybe there still is - a weird management theory that you can always cut headcount by 10%. Even if you do it repeatedly, you can always get rid of a tenth of your staff at no impact to business. I had several friends let go from companies that had successive rounds of decimation. Clearly, math isn't a highly valued skill on most MBA courses.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:22
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nonathlon posted:Clearly, math isn't a highly valued skill on most MBA courses. From a lot of the people I've talked to who've done MBA's I pretty sure that's because the people running the courses know if too much math was involved their graduation rate would fall substantially. I mean maybe there's good MBA courses out there... maybe.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:40
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Cut by 10%, then rehire those positions as a revolving door of contractors and temps. Why does no one in this company know ANYTHING about the poo poo we make? WHAT IS HAPPENING?
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Jul 12, 2022 17:43
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McGavin posted:Target in Canada is a bad example. Target Canada was such a massive failure that it seems impossible it could have failed as badly as it did, and yet https://archive.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-canada/
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Jul 12, 2022 18:07
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:starbucks in america opens stores in places where there are already successful coffee shops because they use other coffee shops to test whether a coffee shop can succeed in a particular area. I remember reading that when mcdonalds expanded across the USA they spent a fortune researching population, demographics, traffic patterns, visibility etc. to find the perfect place for each restaurant. All burger king had to do was plop a burger king next to each mcdonalds.
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Jul 12, 2022 18:40
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Pekinduck posted:I remember reading that when mcdonalds expanded across the USA they spent a fortune researching population, demographics, traffic patterns, visibility etc. to find the perfect place for each restaurant. All burger king had to do was plop a burger king next to each mcdonalds. I love that story.
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Jul 12, 2022 20:16
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In essence, burger king used a pencil?
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Jul 12, 2022 22:24
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Ambassadorofsodomy posted:In essence, burger king used a pencil? God I hate THAT boomer anecdote more than most because of just how stupid it is.
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Jul 12, 2022 22:26
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It's more of a "the second mouse gets the cheese" thing anyway.
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Jul 12, 2022 22:33
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Pekinduck posted:I remember reading that when mcdonalds expanded across the USA they spent a fortune researching population, demographics, traffic patterns, visibility etc. to find the perfect place for each restaurant. All burger king had to do was plop a burger king next to each mcdonalds. The difference is McDonald's owned the land under the franchisee stores and Burger King didn't, in addition to various other structural differences so McDs has double the US store count but 5 times the revenue and hasnt been sold multiple times due to financial distress.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:20
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McGavin posted:Target in Canada is a bad example. Remember when their internal systems were so badly set up that someone was able to access their credit card processing through the HVAC controls? Then their internal alarms did go off but were ignored until the secret service got so many fraud claims linked to target they showed up. I think their CEO resigned over that one.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:21
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Powered Descent posted:It's more of a "the second mouse gets the cheese" thing anyway. Except that Burger King even at its height in the 90s was second to mcDonalds in every category. And now is a shadow of even that being displaced by Taco Bell and Wendy’s for #2 and been kicked down frankly to Hardee’s tier. They reaped no discernible benefits beyond saving a small amount on R&D.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:27
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Barudak posted:The difference is McDonald's owned the land under the franchisee stores and Burger King didn't, in addition to various other structural differences so McDs has double the US store count but 5 times the revenue and hasnt been sold multiple times due to financial distress. Yeah, it’s hard to overstate just how much McDonalds is a real estate business with a small side hustle running a burger joint. They basically create their own customers, the franchisees, then get to charge both a franchise fee + rent in perpetuity. It’s like “I want to buy a commercial property and guarantee that I will always have someone who will rent that property from me. Also, I’m going to make them pay me for the privilege of setting up the business they run that pays me rent.” LanceHunter fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 23:27
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LanceHunter posted:Yeah, it’s hard to overstate just how much McDonalds is a real estate business with a small side hustle running a burger joint. They basically create their own customers, the franchisees, then get to charge both a franchise fee + rent in perpetuity. I had no idea Fascinating, brilliant
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Jul 12, 2022 23:31
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Except that Burger King even at its height in the 90s was second to mcDonalds in every category. And now is a shadow of even that being displaced by Taco Bell and Wendy’s for #2 and been kicked down frankly to Hardee’s tier. They reaped no discernible benefits beyond saving a small amount on R&D. A fast food restaurant is still a license to print money, that's the benefit. Yeah a BK is never going to top a McD's but it's still pretty good money (for the owner, and the BK corporation selling the franchises anyway) This happens in every industry, back in the day Hollywood Video (there's a failing large company) pretty much just opened up a store near every Blockbuster too, in addition to the market research for figuring out which neighborhood mom and pop video stores they were going to bankrupt first by opening up nearby.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:35
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i spend a lot of time on long drives and i see McDonalds absolutely everywhere, in plazas off just about every interstate in the country out in the middle of nowhere, sometimes even in small towns away from interstates, and of course in every part of every city. Burger Kings i see only in cities and suburbs
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Jul 13, 2022 00:18
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CookOut has also been quietly pursuing the company-owned real estate model, while also delivering a god-tier product. It's one to watch for sure.
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Jul 13, 2022 00:36
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BK is basically one of the most popular fast food restaurants in vegan circles (the ones who eat fast food, at least), because it's one of the few places that is found pretty much across the entire US where you can just...buy a burger combo, and be okay so long as you specify no cheese (sometimes they add it without asking). Taco Bell really has the most items you can get with no to minimal special ordering, but sometimes...you just kinda get sick of Taco Bell. (For reference, even if McDonald's finally eventually debuts the McPlant, they won't be displacing BK in that niche, because their fries are not vegan)
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Jul 13, 2022 00:52
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Barudak posted:The difference is McDonald's owned the land under the franchisee stores and Burger King didn't, in addition to various other structural differences so McDs has double the US store count but 5 times the revenue and hasnt been sold multiple times due to financial distress. I don't know if they're really failing but Burger King might fit in this thread. Maybe they've shaped up since I was in college but I remember you'd occasionally find one that was just a dump. Stained, collapsing ceiling tiles, battered furniture, cracked windows. I'd think: I've never seen a McDonalds in this condition, Burger King must be more lax with franchisees. If they're lax about this, what else don't they care about? Same energy as Sears/Kmart.
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Jul 13, 2022 02:26
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Well, I used to.  Under the terms of my separation agreement, everything was wonderful and I have no ill feelings towards the three managers I had in as many months at the corporate office, and I'm sure the CFO of 2022 will do an ever better job than the CFO of 2021 or the CFO of 2020. To the moon!
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Jul 13, 2022 03:43
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Friend posted:Well, I used to. That sucks. I hope your separation is good and you join somewhere better
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Jul 13, 2022 03:59
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dev286 posted:I too worked in broadcasting starting around 2003. I saw us go from record profits to massive losses and multiple rounds of layoffs and early retirements. The hiring crisis is just as bad in the United States, if not worse. My last employer, a network affiliate in a top-ten Nielsen market, has around two dozen open jobs dating back to May. The station’s owners have hundreds of open jobs company-wide, and judging by the LinkedIn posts I see from the corporate recruiters, those jobs aren’t being filled. Broadcasting is a dying industry. The generations that grew up watching the six o'clock news religiously are getting older and fewer in number. Behind them are generations of people accustomed to getting their news and entertainment online. To them, linear broadcast TV is irrelevant.
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Jul 13, 2022 04:19
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Employers nowadays seem to have had it so good for so long they genuinely don't know how to deal with having people not willing to do shitloads of work with no training for poverty wages.
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Jul 13, 2022 05:39
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LanceHunter posted:Yeah, it’s hard to overstate just how much McDonalds is a real estate business with a small side hustle running a burger joint. They basically create their own customers, the franchisees, then get to charge both a franchise fee + rent in perpetuity. The Founder does a pretty great job of explaining the McDonalds business model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxCL2RqCuiY
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Jul 13, 2022 10:02
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I had a friend who used to work for Kodak, everyone thinks that the company died because it didn't adapt to the times but the real reason was that the 90s was apparently the time where huge companies decided to focus on being the best in one market and abandoning everything else by selling off or shutting down their other businesses. Jack Welsh's apparently 'saved' GE in that way and every other CEO thought that it was a great model to imitate. Turns out that completely betting everything on a certain industry might have some side effects when you're no longer able to be the top in that industry anymore and now you no longer have any diversification to help weather the storm, who would have thought! So Kodak gets some hotshot CEO who decides to go 100% in cameras and printing and sells off their other businesses which at the time puts the share price at all time highs, but I think we all know what happens to the company in the end, my friend was seeing it happen in real time and saying that the CEO is absolutely insane and that the decisions make no sense. More layoffs keep happening, morale goes down the pits and he decides to get out while he still can, and within a decade a company which used to employ hundreds of thousands around the world is now just a tiny fraction out of HQ who only seem to make money through lawsuits. The irony is that a lot of the companies that got split and sold off like Eastman Chemical and Bayer are still doing well, a hell of a lot better than Kodak at least. Every goddamn pundit was hyping up Jack Welsh as the greatest man to ever walk the earth at the time, I guess he's lucky he retired after his decisions reached the logical conclusion at GE, since we all know how that company is doing now!
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Jul 13, 2022 10:30
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There's definitely sound logic in specialising as a company, since it can be unwieldy if you have different departments that don't have a lot in common but are stuck together, and potential liabilities for each other with few upsides. The people at Bayer and Eastman Chemical are probably glad they weren't chained to that sinking ship.
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Jul 13, 2022 11:18
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Yeah look to something like the PayPal / eBay split as an example. PayPal was a subsidary of eBay and as an end result had a ball and chain tied to their ankle. Take a look at PayPal's evaluation before and after the split to see how it went.
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Jul 13, 2022 13:42
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Original_Z posted:I had a friend who used to work for Kodak, everyone thinks that the company died because it didn't adapt to the times but the real reason was that the 90s was apparently the time where huge companies decided to focus on being the best in one market and abandoning everything else by selling off or shutting down their other businesses. Jack Welsh's apparently 'saved' GE in that way and every other CEO thought that it was a great model to imitate. Turns out that completely betting everything on a certain industry might have some side effects when you're no longer able to be the top in that industry anymore and now you no longer have any diversification to help weather the storm, who would have thought! GE basically went to poo poo because of additional businesses that became a drag on their core business, specifically their finance division. Someone can maybe correct me on that if it’s not true
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Jul 13, 2022 13:48
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I thought their finance division was their most profitable, but that may no longer be true as of the last 10 years. GE is also the poster child for corporate welfare and they pay little to no taxes and are in fact subsidized by taxpayers. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html Sorry for the old article I think it still holds true though.
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Jul 13, 2022 14:42
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Ultramega OK posted:
Since I no longer have cable, I only see local news when in a waiting room or at someone else's home. I'm in a city in Ontario that only has one CTV station for local news. For those that don't know, Bell owns CTV and boy can you tell. With the exception of 1 or 2 stories, everything else is just a repeat of what every other CTV anchor in the country is saying that night. The stories are all for shock or to get more Likes on facebook. They depend on the social traffic so much, it almost seems if they tailored the story just for more Likes and Retweets. The reporters don't even report anything interesting because they are too busy trying to make it to a bigger market. Its easier for them to report on a NIMBY issue or stop any idiot on the street for an opinion. They add this to their Sizzle Reel so they can get the hell out of here and have a shot at Breakfast Television in Calgary.
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Jul 13, 2022 14:58
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Interesting longform piece about the Lehman Brothers cleanup operation https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-lehman-brothers-collapse-plan-repay-after-bankruptcy/
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Jul 13, 2022 15:04
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:I thought their finance division was their most profitable, but that may no longer be true as of the last 10 years. Nah, they absolutely hosed themselves in the financial division. Part of the problem was that they got into selling insurance. Specifically, long-term care insurance. In the 90s they were raking in all this money from people paying for these policies, but then in the 00s and beyond they started to have to pay out for them. Apparently, they didn't account for exactly how long people would live or how much more expensive long term care would become. My grandmother, for example, has been living in assisted-care facilities for the last decade that are all extremely swanky and nearly cost five figures a month. All of this is 100% paid for because she got one of those really plum GE insurance plans.
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Jul 13, 2022 15:07
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Bonzo posted:Since I no longer have cable, I only see local news when in a waiting room or at someone else's home. I'm in a city in Ontario that only has one CTV station for local news. For those that don't know, Bell owns CTV and boy can you tell. With the exception of 1 or 2 stories, everything else is just a repeat of what every other CTV anchor in the country is saying that night. The stories are all for shock or to get more Likes on facebook. They depend on the social traffic so much, it almost seems if they tailored the story just for more Likes and Retweets. It's pretty bleak. I know some reporters who do local news and they do it all themselves. Shoot, report, edit, live hits, radio, web writing... It's ok for daily news like city council, police blotter kinda stuff but forget doing anything timely or interesting. There is also a demand for evergreen stories that can be repeated during the week to pad out local news. And yes, most small market reporters don't want to stick around because it pays so bad. I used to operate automation (from Toronto) for a local Calgary show and they had two people in their building for the 6PM news. The anchor and a jack of all trades technician. That's it. I made better newscasts in college.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:07
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Thanks to this thread I didn't get much sleep last night.
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Jul 15, 2022 04:54
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Escape From Noise posted:Thanks to this thread I didn't get much sleep last night. Wait is this thread a large company that's failing? Have we become the very thing that we hated??? 
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Jul 15, 2022 04:59
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SA is a large failing forum?
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Jul 15, 2022 05:00
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Ambassadorofsodomy posted:SA is a large failing forum? Huge, if true. I'm selling the story to Vice!
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Jul 15, 2022 05:04
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Ambassadorofsodomy posted:SA is a large failing forum? I mean just checking the news today, maybe just go with humanity as a whole?
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Jul 15, 2022 05:05
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I know a place where the owner ostensibly had good revenue streams but wasted it all on drugs and cookies and cars instead of investing in infrastructure so everything was really old and creaking at the seams. Eventually he had some health problems or w/e and sold the company to a new guy for a fraction of what it used to be worth. The new guy seems to be turning things around but who knows. Oh and one of the managers was a paedo
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Jul 15, 2022 09:22
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