More saga from Megacorp. Some of our 1-800 lines have been turned off because of non-payment of bill. Now, I have been sending these bills to the folks at the Megacorp headquarters for several months now. About 2 months ago I received a note saying all our long distance service will be turned off because of non payment of the bill. Now, two 1-800 numbers that customers use to call in and inquire about products or order products or whatever no longer work.
If you read through my past few posts, you would have learned that the people who are supposed to be paying these bills are being fired and their job functions are being outsourced to India. (are you paying attention... there will be a test later). Anyway.....Yeah.... we are off to a good start. Nothing has been outsourced yet and some of our phone lines were cut off already.
What makes this even more funny, is when I was told of this, I was in a meeting with a woman from our PBX equipment provider. We were working on a new lease to replace our old stuff with newer stuff and get more features for less monthly cost and one of our accounting people came into my office to tell me about the phones being cut off because we did not pay the bill. Well, all she needed to hear was they we do not pay the bills. She sort of had a weird look in our face. She then asked "Umm.. are you guys going to be here in 5 years. I mean, is this business good". I am like "Well, I am supposed to be gone at the end of this year but Megacorp is a 20 Billion dollar a year company. This place is a small division of Megacorp and it will probably be here. It's not that Megacorp doesn't have any money, they just don't like to pay their vendors. That's how they go so big". She had a worried look on her face. (she should)
I hope our credit is not denied. Our phone system really needs to be updated.
Well, it has been awhile since anything really good happened that was worth writing about. However, we have a good one here. It was worth the wait.
Megacorp, along with more other large companies, is moving some of it's processes to India. Why? Because some Indian will do just as crappy as a job for $5 a week than someone in the Megacorp headquarters will do for $100 a day. The department they are outsourcing to India is called the Shared Services Department.
These are the folks that manage the GL and the AP aspects of Megacorp. They do the financial closings each month, create the financial reports, pay the bills....... important things. Well, there are 150 people at the Megacorp Headquarters who will be losing their jobs and it seems they are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. In the last 3 weeks, about 30 people of the 150 total have given notice. Our Division has 2 people that help with our financial activities and both will be gone in a few days.
Now, if you read through this blog you will see our bills don't get paid on time as it is. Heck, every 6th post must be about a bill problem. How much more screwed up will it be if someone in India is trying to pay them? I can barely get ahold of anyone in the Megacorp headquarters in the US to get this crap fixed when it happens, how the hell am I going to locate the person responsible in India? 1-800-get-screwed. What's even more odd is how this relates to the recent rules/laws set forth by our government regardng financial control and reporting accuracy. It's called Sarbanes Oxley and it stems from the whole Enron thing.
In the past, companies would have a set of 3rd party auditors, like Price Waterhouse or someone come in and audit their books to make sure they are not lying. Well, we see how well that worked for Enron and Arthur Anderson and other large companies so the Government created these new regulations. These auditors are now coming in like the Gestapo, looking for any inkling of wrong doing and looking for reams of documentation that your numbers are financial data are actually correct.
I go through this every day from an IT standpoint and I can understand the need and the severity and I just have to wonder how the hell they are going to have any control of this stuff in India? Especially when the shared services people seem to be over-worked, overloaded, and just can't do what they are supposed to do here. They can't control this shit here and they are going to move it to India? Add to this the newer Government regulations (The sarbanes Oxley act) and the fact the job is done poorly here to begin with, and this has disaster written all over it.
To add insult to injury, the CEO of Megacorp sent out some bullshit email a few weeks ago to everyone about how well Megacorp is doing regarding cost savings and that more cost savings need to be done. He then adds that this does not necessarily mean elimination of jobs. Really? What a lying sack of shit. Tell that to the shared services people.