Because with only a £14billion profit they really need those £250million in savings. Doesn't matter who suffers because it's the company and the shareholders that matter.

Bastards

Stay well clear of IT. There is no future in it in the UK as clearly demonstrated by Shell.

... if they're planning on outsourcing to EDS. What next, TCS?

They'll be really stuck when they need people back in 3 years but they've all gone and found jobs where they are appreciated.

There's less money in it than ever, and your job security is about as much as Kevin Keegan's at NUFC (for the british readers) or Marty Schottenheimer after the "Marty Ball" fiasco of last year (for the americans among us).

I can't believe i'm actually considering changing jobs. I'd have more security working for Mc D's than working in IT.

> just about enough does to keep us quiet, and that's what Shell should be doing

Well put! Enough to keep you quiet, and to keep you doing your bit, which is to play your part in helping your employer generate such fantastic profits.

Although there is a real-world legal responsibility for corporations to attend to the needs of shareholders above all else (another conversation there entirely), there is something quite distasteful in treating people like this and, if companies don't see their part in the bigger picture, lay-offs and worries about job security will only add to the growing fears of a financial downturn (after all, if you're not earning -- or are worried about not earning -- enough, you're less likely to spend, spend, spend) and they'll see their share prices drop in the resulting recession.

Maybe they're worried about running out of oil and not being able to pay anybody anything in a few years...

Well having worked at a bank where EDS in with a major oursourcing deal. I reassure the workers there than any similar deal will resolve the problem of Shell making too much profit.

EDS seem to have a, shall we call it "protection-racket" business plan where they yank your servers out to a remote data centre under their control, give you appalling service and then suggest your need to hire "a consultant" from then, it might help solve the problem.

That's the only word for Shell. Here in Aberdeen they're constantly cutting jobs and "streamlining" then they come out with this. They're the embodiment of the Capitalist Pig culture, lining shareholders pockets while screwing everyone else. The govt won't give a fuck cos they're pockets are being lined as well, whether through excessive tax or from backhanders from their scum mason friends in the industry.

give that much of the rest of the company is, um, offshore

Mines the sou'wester then

Once again, fat pig b@stard shareholders get richer, while the people who actually make the company money are shafted.

Disgusting.

I've got nothing against the principle of outsourcing when it makes good business sense. The real problem is that all too often it's done with a major drop in quality of service (although not always ...). We outsource some of our support roles to South Africa - great idea in principle except that now many are being pulled back here after it was realised that they were a bunch of lazy useless bastards.

The government will never like IT because young people earn more than management. Management can't abide this situation.

Also, it hates being in the position that small numbers of people earn loads of money, as poor people vote them out.

They'd much prefer it, if they could make IT like bricklaying.

However, wouldn't it be a laugh if IT people went on strike? How quickly would the country stop? No powerstations, no petrol, no telly, and so on.

This is why the government has to keep IT people earning a bit more than everyone else.

Firstly, I want to say, I've worked in IT for over 15 years. Yet, it is clear from these comments that a lot of people in IT have a very over-rated opinion of themselves. If you think that 3000 IT workers had anything more than a mediocre affect on the profits of Shell then you are sadly deluded. The key reason Shell made so much money was because of extraordinarily high oil prices. Prices that will almost certainly dip if the situation in the Middle East stabilises at all. Shell have to keep the pressure on costs to make sure they are profitable if oil prices fall by any margin, or if there is any significant interruption to supply from their oil fields - both of which are pretty likely.

Coming from someone with a working class background, I think that modern unions do far more damage than anything else. No-one has a right to a job. You get paid by someone if they think that their outlay on you is worth it compared to the money you directly or indirectly make. As soon as that equation doesn't reasonably balance then you should look elsewhere. If the IT staff at Shell are as skilled as they claim they are, then they should have no problem finding alternative jobs. Or maybe they have forgotten that the vast majority of IT these days is boilerplate work - something you can train a new person to do without too much effort.

Get a grip.

I can't wait till all their systems go to pot and they have to bring it all back again!

'Shell have to keep the pressure on costs to make sure they are profitable if oil prices fall by any margin'

did you not read the article. £13.9 BILLION in profit. That is pure profit, not revenue so all salaries, expenditure, taxes, EVERYTHING has been taken into account. That's more than the national product of some small countries. What are they going to do with all that money that makes saving £250mill worthwhile? Are they going to sink it all into developing clean technologies? NO, they will invest some but a long way away from all. It will go to the rich shareholders or sit in the bank earning interest everyday, making them yet more money that will not end up doing anything useful. How far do you think the company would have to sink before it became unprofitable?

That isn't the issue, what is a stake is thousands of peoples livelihoods being threatened to make a few savings, and when you compare £14bil to £250mil, it is only a small saving.

As for your comment of 'If the IT staff at Shell are as skilled as they claim they are, then they should have no problem finding alternative jobs' what utter bollocks. Have you any idea how things work. Fewer jobs means more skilled people apply for them. So many in fact that a lot of CVs get overlooked as there are too many to process. More people willing to do the job means companies have greater leverage in terms of dictating salary, so the amount you can earn goes down. Why would a company like shell who are obviously only interested in profits, not the people who allow them to make such obscene amounts of money, want to pay someone highly trained with 10 years in the business what they are worth if they can point to a new graduate and see instant savings of £10-20k in what they pay as a salary?

I have no doubt that you would change your tune once all this outsourcing starts to affect you directly and you are faced with submitting application after application only to never receive an interview because you are viewed as 'too expensive'

I too come from a working class background, and I can see the benefits the unions have brought. Before the unions, employers could dictate everything to you, working hours (70+ per week), no sick pay even if you are off because of something that happened at work, no overtime, no complaints procedure because if you do you get fired, no increases based on extra training or adding responsibilities to your workload, It goes on and on.

You sanctimonious prick

Nice to know that little dust up in the middle east wasn't all about oil. It would be really terrible if hundreds of thousands of people had lost their lives so some fat ugly share holders (and IT workers with out any moral back bone) could get even fatter.

so let me get this straight, companies like this make their money from selling their products in the UK. Then they gradually move over their workforce to employ people from other countries(where presumably they don't sell any products), thereby creating unemployment and reducing the spending power of people in the country where they make their profits?

Does this even remotely make sense? If enough companies did this, then they would all collectively be shooting themselves in the foot(feet rather) and end up making no profits at all. But then of course, big shit companies don't employ this kind of real world rational do they? No, as far as they're concerned, other companies will employ and ensure that their consumers have money to spend, and perhaps a government or two will throw in tax payer money in the form of subsidies (again ironically tax money comes from EMPLOYED workers), and then they can skim a little more profit in the short term, not realizing that ultimately they're dooming themselves, and the whole country in the future.

Socialist rant over, I'd like to clarify that I come from a 3rd world country where presumably we would benefit from outsourcing, but I believe that this is just not fair. A company should be obligated to invest in its country of origin and contribute to it's economy, not suck it dry and rake in the profits for itself and a few greedy shareholders and corporate poofs.

phew that was long.....mine's the one with bad motherfucker on it............

If it weren't for multi-millionaire CEOs and crooked, insensitive business deals the politicos wouldn't have jobs. Menial laborers like engineers, programmers, DBAs, etc are a dime a dozen......oh, wait.....I could sewar that was the last quote on the commodities exchange........

Anyhow more power to their union.....private sector IT workers over here generally aren't even "allowed" to unionize. Really doesn't matter.....their jobs get sent overseas anyhow.

What is wrong here?

If I'm not mistaken, in a capitalist market

When the cost of your raw material, in this case crude oil.

When the cost of manufacturing has gone up.

- If the oil monopoly is to be believed its due to demand and accidents which may be partially true but the oil trust has not put any money into infrastructure in 20 years.

Profits are supposed to go down, not up.

Can the demand for crude for making plastic be that strong from China?

Go and live in Hyderabad or Bangalore, India is the fastest growing economy and has that 1980's atmosphere, optimism and decor.

http://www.businessinnovationinsider.com/bangalore.jpg

Ask companies who have punted that shit show out of their environment how much money they saved by bringing it back in house. We did it 6 years ago and now it doesn't cost $800 to re-image a workstation. I couldn't believe my eyes when i saw the invoice! Yes we had a support contract, they managed everything. Shell will learn the hard way that EDS or any large outsourcer can not deliver the same level of service or be as agile as most internal IT shops.

In my dealings with them as well as working for a considerably smaller out sourcer i noticed a trend. Staff within EDS are internally migratory. We had so many different administrators managing our windows network that everything had to rebuilt from scratch. Yes we gave up on their managed domain and only migrated the exchange mailboxes.

I feel bad for the IT staff that have this happen or the threat looming over their heads. Shell will learn when their environment starts to fail and that 250 Mill they gave back to the investors turns into a 2 Bil charge per year as EDS extorts the fuck out of them for "Extra Services"

I picked Paris because it saddens her to know that Shell IT staff will not be able to afford highspeed internet after they outsource. Now how will they be able to download her latest sexcapade video?

>> Because with only a £14billion profit they really need those

>> £250million in savings. Doesn't matter who suffers because it's the

>> company and the shareholders that matter.

>>

>> Bastards

The point that I think you are missing, is that the bonus of the person making the decision probably isn't linked to the £14bn - his bonus is linked to the £250m it will hopefully save (albeit in the short term).

Oh goody - yet another "we're short of articles, so let's mention EDS". It makes me laugh to see that NO-ONE has bothered to mention the other partners in this deal - namely T-Systems and AT&T. Funny that Engineers Delivering Someday get ALL the focus, when - as far as I can see - it'll be T-Systems that get the majority of the critical systems, EDS is only doing "desktop support", and who the frak cares if some PHB's laptop goes down when he's having a "private dictation" session with his PA? (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

So are T-Systems a wonderful bunch of people or, and I think this more likely, yet another bunch of spineless a-holes that'll sack most of "The 3,200" in about 6 months, and move their jobs to a bunch of useless monkeys stuck in some sweatshop in the Asian jungles? I think I'd put my money on the latter option! Similar for AT&T...

If so ex-Shell guys, then I feel for you - I'm in the same boat. :-( I'm not a racist, but just don't ask me to be polite to anyone of Indian extraction at the moment. :-P

I've seen outsourcing work really well - the customer just says "this is what we want, this is the max we're willing to pay, go do it!". Unhappily, most of the UK deals I've seen/heard-about are more like "this is what we want to do today, and here's *our* team that'll peer over your shoulder while you do it and double-check *every* decision you make, and force you to justify it. Now how cheap can you do this?". And they wonder why it's costing them *more*!

The phrase about drunken parties in beer brewing establishments comes to mind... (and while I'm talking about brewers - S&N r.i.p.)

Shell is the dark side. For example, they love dictatorships, because in such countries you have to invest less in the environment and prevention of polution. Ken Saro-Wiwa anyone? So, to maximize profit, they consiously f*ck up the land of people who can't protect themselves, and won't do a thing if the dictator who profits too "cleans up" some of the local protesters. This is not a Nigeria strategy, it's theur world wide strategy from Asia to Africa to South-America.

So, this is common knowledge. It's why I didn't take an offer through a headhunter agency 10 years ago to work for Shell. I don't want to work for the dark side. Apparently this was all not a problem at all for the IT guys working there. Hey, it's very, very well paid.

Don't expect me to feel sorry for a second for them. If any of them disagrees, please get your sorry ass to the Ogoni people and explain how you made a career out of their misery. Thank you.

[quote]

Whether 3000 IT workers at Shell deserve more money or not, we'll never know - unless you or I work in IT in Shell. For all you know, they could actually be getting paid peanuts, while their company rakes in profits.

[/quote]

Incidentally, a major multinational engineering services company with a large base of operations up here in Aberdeen, who obtains more than half of their business from energy / oil companies like Shell, actually does pay their IT staff peanuts compared to the rest of the industry.

When I say peanuts, I mean to the tune of about £12,000 PA for fairly skilled remote support staff... Hell, you could earn almost twice that working in a supermarket or collecting bins.

re "Overinflated opinion of themselves" By Anonymous Coward

Posted Friday 1st February 2008 13:04 GMT

--------------------------

You hit the nail on the head. I used to work for Shell and went through many a re-shuffle in the 80's and they haven't changed one bit. Am I bitter? No they do what they think is right for their company and we move on. I did and have the best job ever and not a corporate stats driven suit in sight at my place. I now have a great job with all the benefits I need and let my staff do the work based on their abilities and experience and don't patronise them with stats and targets either, and they respect and appreciate that and give their all to our business as a result as do I.

I am 100% certain I'd never had got this position if I'd stayed at Shell UK Downstream Oil.

So I'd like to say THANK YOU to Shell for making me redundant, thanks for not having the confidence in my abilities all those years ago and thank you for letting me see what an arrogant bunch of senior management Muppets you employed way back then and still do today. They may line their own pockets indirectly but as a senior manager I I can sleep at night with a clear conscience I never made a decision to remove staff for profit only.

Do I buy Shell Fuel today? NEVER! Would this be the ultimate punishment for them and their profits if everyone stopped buying from their service stations? Yes it would.

Would everyone do this though? No. In which case move on and stop worrying about them.

To all the IT staff losing their roles - There is a life after Shell, seek it out and you'll find it.

Cya

Ex Shell employee (And much better for it)

[quote]

"But they're not telling us anything and are instead busy lining the pockets of shareholders."

Yep, but if we were to kill the bastards it would be us in the dock. Fucking legalised crime.

[/quote]

Only if we get caught, matey. ;)