OT – Does any one work for Capita / HP / Logica / CSC / EMC

I’m considering looking for a new better paid job; having looked at the big IT companies that are potentially commutable for me just curious to know if any STWers work for Capita / HP / Logica / CSC / EMC or Fujitsu and if so whether or not you’d recommend them as a good employer / good place to work?

I work for Logica. As does my brother in law. Big employers in South Wales. Best company I’ve ever worked for. 🙂

They’re great, as long as you forget that they are mostly profitering from taxpayers money spent by our wasting Govt 🙂

Well.

I don’t think I’d want to work for any of those kind of companies. Let me explain to you how it works.

1) Brilliant salespeople persuade some clueless naive company (usually govt agency) to part with many millions of pounds

2) Loads of architects and hangers on gather in one place and plan hugely complicated things

3) Meanwhile client really doesn’t know what it wants

4) Project ploughs ahead anyway, company decides it needs skills in whatever big ideas were planned in step 2

5) Company finds a few contractors but mainly press-gangs poor schmucks from the rank and file to work on something despite not having the skills – all the people who had good skills have left to work elsewhere

6) Company tries to force development to continue at pace despite the client realising that it originally knew shit about the whole concept and now needs to go away and have a proper think about it – no thanks to the company who didn’t step in and help, they just took the clients word as definitive.

7) Company replaces management several times, but the schmucks can’t go anywhere cos they have to be working all the time.

8 ) Project managers are under pressure to report good news, so they paint stuff in a good light

9) Management then promise the client that it’s all coming along nicely when no-one really knows what ‘it’ is but doesn’t want to admit it.

10) It goes downhill from there.

……

DISCLAIMER: Please note the above is not about my current employer, just previous ones as I have worked for several such companies.

Where are you based and what is commutable?

I used to work for CSC.
Personally it wasn’t for me and I did not enjoy the work. I do however admire those who are able to make a career with them.

Good luck but remember to be your own man.

Sister works for c(r)apita and being polite, she hates it. Politics, bitchiness, back stabbing, constant redundanancies…. high staff turnover, low moral….

Haven’t met anyone who has enjoyed working there….

But it might just be that site, might just be the people i know, you might find it different

c(r)apita are the most disorganised company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Good at selling themselves and **** thereafter.

I used to work for Logica, now contracting.

Logica as a bunch of people were great, but the management consistenly refused to pay me what I was worth (regularly hiring more junior people and paying them more, then telling me that I was earning market rate) then they tried to utterly shaft me when I left (got another company to withdraw a job offer).

Would I work for them again? Probably, but I’d go in with my eyes open, and get out again as soon as I thought I was due a payrise.

Dave

I’ve a good friend who works for CSC and has done for 10 years, so they must be ok 🙂

I worked for Logica for about 18 months before being made redundant and thought they were shambolic. Within a week of starting I was sent to Dublin to ‘learn as much as I can’. Commuted out first class every week from Heathrow for 14 weeks in total and learnt nothing in that time and nobody cared even though I did. Spent over £8k on expenses excl. flights. Whole management seemed pretty clueless and felt like they had lucked into their positions, but had no idea how to do the actual role. Glad to have been paid to leave (though this was 10 years ago and things might have changed)

@molgrips, that is uncannily accurate 🙂

you forgot one thing though; there is a massive culture of underbidding.

Sales people come and ask us technical bods to estimate something – we spend ages working out how much we think it will cost. They then knock 25% off and bid it.

If questioned as to why, they will happily explain that if they don’t underbid, we won’t win the work. YOU BLOODY CRETINS! If we win the work now, we’ll make a loss! it would be better to lose it!

The only way to pull it back is for the poor bloody permies to do hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime, with the vague promise (lie) that it will be recognised at their performance review.

I now refuse to play the game – 8.30-5pm contractor now 🙂 I will work extra if stuff needs doing, but not just because the project has been underfunded.

Dave

Worked for Capita IT services (as a software developer), left 18 months ago. Good people actually doing the work, but everything else about the place was awful. No career progression, no rewards for working hard, no reviews, no staff development, no pay rises, bizarre corporate rules, in-fighting, etc.

Senior management seemed to reward themselves for screwing up projects and alienating staff. Anything that got delivered was done so despite the management, not because of it.

No idea about the other companies but in my experience Capita is a soul destroying place to work

I work for Logica

No you don’t, you work for CGI 😉 Not sure I’d recommend us at the moment with all the post-acquisition re-organisation going on, once it calms down it should be a pretty interesting place to work though

I think the more pertinent question is do you want to work in a large corporate versus a smaller, maybe even owner managed business/SME.

This statement illustrates the point:

Sister works for c(r)apita <insert any large corporate entity here> and being polite, she hates it. Politics, bitchiness, back stabbing, constant redundancies…. high staff turnover, low moral….

The dynamics and culture of the organisation are the product of many variables, but size tends to determine management structure (flat, hierarchical, matrix etc) and that has a big impact on an individual’s experience of working there.

I’ve done both and I know that I fit best into the smaller owner managed businesses but I also know that I have to be very careful about what type of smaller owner managed business I work for. Just because it’s the right size doesn’t mean I will fit in; I know I need to find the right kind of chemistry especially with the owner.

Not sure if that helps but thinking about where you’re coming from and what has worked well for you in that organisation will be a good starting point for evaluating where you head to next.

I have worked for two of the companies on that list in the Financial Services sector as a Business/Systems Analyst. I wont say which, but they both start with C 🙂

Molgrips has it absolutely bang on, except the difference in FS is:

1) Brilliant salespeople persuade some clueless naive companycompany desparate to offload behemoth administration systems and processes that supposrt a dwindling book of business (usually govt agency) to part with many millions of pounds with stories of being able to replace those systems with swanky new ones in about a year, even though the original comapny, with all the people who know everything about the systems have been trying to do it for years and years and haven’t been able to

2) Loads of architects and hangers on gather in one place and plan hugely complicated things

3) Meanwhile client really doesn’t know what it wantslaughs all the way to the penalty clauses for non-delivery

I’ve worked for 4 of the list, either perm or contract. Moly has it right. Jobs are habitually underbid to get a foot in the door then the poor sods responsible for delivery (me) have to both make a success of the bid and recover the margin.

Unless you want to sell your soul to Mammon, stay away from perm roles. On the tech side, they generally are not massively well paid unless very niche/specialist. The management roles are better paid but expect a world of grief. The sales roles are massively rewarded and don’t appear to come with any responsibility other than to achieve their made up numbers.

Contract for them and walk away once/if/when cheesed off. That’s what I do now.

Contract for them and walk away once/if/when cheesed off. That’s what I do now.

Amen brother. Same work, double the pay, half the stress.

I’ve worked with some of the above companies and agree. I work in competition with them, hence this….

you forgot one thing though; there is a massive culture of underbidding.

Sales people come and ask us technical bods to estimate something – we spend ages working out how much we think it will cost. They then knock 25% off and bid it.

If questioned as to why, they will happily explain that if they don’t underbid, we won’t win the work. YOU BLOODY CRETINS! If we win the work now, we’ll make a loss! it would be better to lose it!

The only way to pull it back is for the poor bloody permies to do hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime, with the vague promise (lie) that it will be recognised at their performance review.

….is basically the core context of my job to avoid, and you can do that by doing this:

Good luck but remember to be your own man.

…but you need the wherewithall and expertise to back it up. I essentially design successful solutions, force our Sales people thats the only route for them, refuse to comprimise and help them present the reasons for that to our prospoective customers.

I bid directly against capita and partned with them on one bid – I knew we’d lose the captita fronted bid from meeting no 2. I bid against them reguarly with an honest, more expensive and demonstrably successful solutions and win. They now partner with one of our competitors who have a history of underbidding then underperforming – we win against that partnership too. *shrugs*.

EDIT: FOR HIRE 😉

Sales people come and ask us technical bods to estimate something – we spend ages working out how much we think it will cost. They then knock 25% off and bid it.

Because if you don’t get the contract you’ll never be able to make any money, so underbid and then screw the client were you can.

Because if you don’t get the contract you’ll never be able to make any money, so underbid and then screw the client were you can.

Fail. Good luck in business. with less money about customers need to manage thier budget with reputable deliverers who’ll live up to the promise. While you will be getting a bad rep for delivery, I’ll take your business. Trust me, I’ve spent the last 12 months doing exactly that.

b r –
Because if you don’t get the contract you’ll never be able to make any money, so underbid and then screw the client were you can.

Aw ****, not the old land and expand blloix… <sigh>.

Trouble is, there’s no internal honesty in this process. The bid team don’t pass the aspirational nature of the ‘win’ to the delivery team, it becomes a hard target despite being underbid.

Sales people come and ask us technical bods to estimate something – we spend ages working out how much we think it will cost. They then knock 25% off and bid it.

This is a classic symptom of sales people that don’t know how to sell. If all you can do to win the business is drop your pants, you’ve no business being in sales.

This is a classic symptom of sales people that don’t know how to sell.

It is also a symptom of the salesforce’s bonuses being based on (and paid in the year of) sales made, rather than profit earned as a result.

It is also a symptom of the salesforce’s bonuses being based on (and paid in the year/quarter of) sales made, rather than profit earned as a result.

Yup – interested in the Sale only VS annual target rather than a success based criteria on company profitiability. AKA “I’ve got my comission thanks but I don’t give a stuff if my Professional Services team is running the bath with the plug out to try to deliver the solution I undersold”

Hmmm, see my other thread I updated today, maybe I should move to Sales after all and my potential new manager has a point… I miught be good at it conceptually 😀

Hmmm, I think people are mistaking the industry of consulting with what it is like to work for one of them. Though I have dealt with all of them, CSC is the only one I have actually worked for.

The offices are a mixed bag. The corporate HQ is stunning and a pleasure to be in. Incredible dining, fine offices and a gallery full of tour de france bikes from the sponsored team. Some of the satellite offices are just horrid.

They pay good benefits and are generous with the expenses (very important if you are consulting).

The quality of the work really depends on the manager you land with. It is incredibly political. If you do not play that game (I do not and will not) you are doomed to the crappest projects, you will not reach your progress targets and you will be out. Exactly the same with Accenture, but Accenture are very “aggressive” with progress targets, progress or get out.

CSC is superb to work for if you are willing to play the game by thier rules. It will be all consuming. 37 hours is what is on your time sheet. Anything less than 50-60 hours on sites will be … Noted….

If you can survive the politics and be skilful and intelligent, if you can win the politics then you will have a great job with CSC.

You say:

CSC is superb to work for

and then you say:

if you are willing to play the game by thier rules. It will be all consuming. 37 hours is what is on your time sheet. Anything less than 50-60 hours on sites will be … Noted….

If you can survive the politics and be skilful and intelligent, if you can win the politics then you will have a great job with CSC.

That’s a big if.

They pay good benefits and are generous with the expenses

Is not my experience.

Yup – interested in the Sale only VS annual target rather than a success based criteria on company profitiability.

My old PM, who had been at CSC for quite a while and was a very good PM, always said that the Bid Team should have to run the account for a year after the bid was won. That would make the bidding process a little more realistic…

It is also a symptom of the salesforce’s bonuses being based on (and paid in the year of) sales made, rather than profit earned as a result.

Yes also very true. What gets measured always becomes important. And what gets paid out on, becomes more important still.

Funny how so few companies’ reward structures are aligned with their business objectives.

No you don’t, you work for CGI  Not sure I’d recommend us at the moment with all the post-acquisition re-organisation going on, once it calms down it should be a pretty interesting place to work though

True. I do work for CGI now. They have a freeze on recruitment at the moment too. I don’t have much to do with the upper ends of the management but from where I am it’s the best job I’ve done for a long time.

I also said that I used to work for CSC.
I couldn’t survive the politics of CSC and I wouldn’t stay to do the crap projects to rip off the client.

However the last consultancy I left did not pay fair on expenses. Or even pay the half of them they would pay on time.

As a consultant you rack up a huge amount of travel and expenses. Often it can be more than your salary.

Out of all the companies mentioned by the OP, the only ones I wouldn’t cheerfully machine gun on sight is CSC.

Not that a client’s perspective should influence your choice.

You didn’t mention IBM but I’d machine gun them too.

I’ve just finished working with some Accenture/ex Accenture people. MFL 🙄 I jacked it in early, it was just getting silly….. The biggies are all much of a muchness really, in the game of selling (mostly) bullshit.

I did a long project as a contractor at CSC.

All the permies on it had been acquired from insurance companies and the like, so they were people who wanted a nice easy life with the big employer in their town. Suddenly they’re consultants being shipped around the country, which they hate. Their skills were very relevant to the company they used to work for, but CSC had put them on a week’s training course in the tools and let them loose on a project.

Consequently the whole thing was being developed by people with really no clue about how to actually do the development. And as a consequence of that it was terribly designed, didn’t work, was really slow, and running over time massively, and the staff felt under terrible pressure because of this.

Every single person was really depressed about it and/or fatalistic. Pretty grim from an emotional point of view. A few survivors managed to not give a shit about it, but that’s no way to spend your working week.

CSC are a bunch to total cretins and treat their people like crap. I worked for a firm that partnered with them for many years and it was amazing how badly they treated and bullied people.

So glad i work in the IT consulting industry for a firm of 15 people. Looks like i wont be making an cv enhancing career move to these lot. Anyone worked with Microsoft consulting services?

that would be the obvious prestigious move for me.