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By using IT outsourcing in India (Tata?), Poland, BA and its parent is revealing some important information: They are cutting corners to the point of risking a
by davidf18 9y ago
By using IT outsourcing in India (Tata?), Poland, BA and its parent is revealing some important information: They are cutting corners to the point of risking airline operations. The question is, where else are they unnecessarily cutting corners? Are they cutting unnecessary corners on airplane maintenance?
Other quality airlines have outsourced IT or part of their IT operations, but they are careful about choosing their IT vendors.
For example, Israel's national carrier, El Al, which also has extremely good security against hijacking, outsources at least its ticketing as a cost savings move, but this it does to Lufthansa the German national carrier, which uses the Amadeus Ticketing platform. El Al is saving money over running their own operations, but still using a reliable vendor.
Quantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one.
Contrasting with Israeli and Australian flag carriers El Al and Quantas, BA the British flag carrier made some extremely unwise choices trying choose a "cheapest" solution, instead of a money saving cheaper solution.
Compared with El Al and Quantas, BA management has shown us that quality of operations is not their top priority. The question is, where else in their operations is this a problem?
BA management is revealing to customer and shareholder alike that customer service and shareholder value is not their highest priority. They are signaling to shareholders that it is time for a change before they further harm the BA brand and before some serious accident happens.
- ern 9y agoQuantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one. I believe IBM was responsible for the Australian census debacle in 2016. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their reliability, and not the only high-profile instance of them messing things up. "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" though.
- davidf18 9y agoWhile I can't speak to the exact circumstances, IBM when it takes over operations often hires the IT staff of the firm it is taking over operations from and runs systems on multiple-year contracts. At any rate, I believe few would contest that IBM in general is a more reliable vendor than Tata, other Indian suppliers or say, offices in Poland. EDIT: Details on IBM and Australian census. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/turning-router-off-and-on-could-have-prevented-census-outage/7963916 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/turning-router-off-and...
- SteveNuts 9y ago> hires the IT staff of the firm it is taking over operations from How can they do that and save the client money at the same time?
- kuschku 9y agoThey hire the IT staff. Not the management, HR, etc.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoAnd presumably short term too, so even if they did hire the whole hierarchy, if they replace it with one having a quarter of the cost in a couple of years then they profit long term?
- gaius 9y agoHow can they do that and save the client money at the same time? Because the staff they transferred over are used to train cheaper replacements then laid off after 2 years. That is the plan all along, tho' the staff will never be told it upfront.
- taway_1212 9y agoIt's pretty funny how in this thread IBM is conflated with decent quality IT outsourcing and Poland with poor quality, while IBM's outsourcing is done out of Poland (among other countries). https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32469.wss https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32469.wss
- davidf18 9y agoIBM has the resources and infrastructure others firms don't have. It can afford to pay higher rates for the top IT people and it has the software and management and the backup in the US to ensure that projects are performed properly. But as a rule, Poland, India, ...other cheaper locales don't offer the quality of the US, Israel, ....look to the places where the world's top software/computer chip design/hardware is being designed and built. There is a correlation. For example, Israel has a population of only 8 million yet creates more original software and startups (purchased by developed nations) than all of India. India buys hi-tech military technology from Israel (and the US).
- crowbahr 9y agoIBM makes mistakes but IBM is massive. You expect some things to happen just by the sheer surface area they have. I'd trust IBM over random outsourced coding houses when it comes to IT Security.
- raesene9 9y agoI wouldn't. IBM have made it a strategic goal to move their staff to "low cost locations" and are even now getting rid of staff in higher cost locations. for example https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/26/ibm_asks_contractors_to_take_a_pay_cut/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/26/ibm_asks_contractor... doesn't sound like a company I'd want to trust.
- rhizome 9y agoPretty convenient that IBM's size lets them remain trusted for things that would disqualify random companies for a given outcome. Why pay so much more for the same problem? What is the conversation that makes this happen? "Yeah, let's go with IBM. The same problems might crop up, but they're a larger company."
- raverbashing 9y agoIBM can mismanage projects and deliver subpar results and people will keep giving them millions of dollars for it "because" The smaller shop have more reasons to try harder and deliver a better result. IBM will just hire the cheapest people they can find and put them under 5 levels of management and good luck with that!
- devonkim 9y agoPeople in this thread talk about IBM like they're the only well known vendor that does this - far from it. All of IBM's enterprise competitors doing professional and managed services such as HP do this as an industry practice. This has everything to do with their customers treating IT as cost centers. I very much believe in hate the game, not the player.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dghughes 9y agoAnd the IBM Phoenix payroll system disaster in Canada. But hey at least Canadian government managers/executives got performance bonuses.
- dchichkov 9y agoYes, it's a cyclic trend in IT: Step 0. Well functioning and balanced company. Step 1. Why these engineers are so expensive? We can hire 'ten for one' in 'country A'. Step 2. Cut local IT budget twice, put goals to have *zero* local IT budget in 2 years. Outsource everything to 'country A'. Step 3. People are fired, everything is outsourced, operational knowledge accumulated over the last few years is lost. Step 4. Why everything is broken and we loosing millions? The service is of a quality like we live in 'country A'! Step 5. We need to hire high quality local team that can take *ownership* over product. We are willing to pay a fortune. Step 6. Well functioning and balanced company. Not sure, if airplane maintenance is being treated the same way.
- Zigurd 9y agoYou cat bet it is: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-... FTA: >The airplanes that U.S. carriers send to Aeroman undergo what’s known in the industry as “heavy maintenance,” which often involves a complete teardown of the aircraft. Every plate and panel on the wings, tail, flaps, and rudder are unscrewed, and all the parts within—cables, brackets, bearings, and bolts—are removed for inspection. The landing gear is disassembled and checked for cracks, hydraulic leaks, and corrosion. The engines are removed and inspected for wear. Inside, the passenger seats, tray tables, overhead bins, carpeting, and side panels are removed until the cabin has been stripped down to bare metal. Then everything is put back exactly where it was, at least in theory. >The work is labor-intensive and complicated, and the technical manuals are written in English, the language of international aviation. According to regulations, in order to receive F.A.A. certification as a mechanic, a worker needs to be able to “read, speak, write, and comprehend spoken English.” Most of the mechanics in El Salvador and some other developing countries who take apart the big jets and then put them back together are unable to meet this standard. At Aeroman’s El Salvador facility, only one mechanic out of eight is F.A.A.-certified. At a major overhaul base used by United Airlines in China, the ratio is one F.A.A.-certified mechanic for every 31 non-certified mechanics. In contrast, back when U.S. airlines performed heavy maintenance at their own, domestic facilities, F.A.A.-certified mechanics far outnumbered everyone else. At American Airlines’ mammoth heavy-maintenance facility in Tulsa, certified mechanics outnumber the uncertified four to one.
- funkyy 9y agoI think you should not put IT specialists from India and Poland in the one bag. Polish engineers are sometimes a bit late when it comes to the new technologies, but are very good compared to ones from, for example, Ireland.
- gaius 9y agoPolish engineers are sometimes a bit late when it comes to the new technologies, but are very good compared to ones from, for example, Ireland. It doesn't matter. They are no smarter than BA's original British engineers, but with decades less experience on those systems. Even if they were smarter - and in general the talent prefers to work for real companies, not bodyshops, so that's unlikely - they can't compensate for the lack of real experience. Only a person who believes experience doesn't matter would sign an outsourcing deal.
- matteo789 9y agoPolish engineers, similarly to Polish fighter jet pilots in WWII, who saved your lazy british asses BTW, do have high-reliability IT systems experience, due to major investment banks and GDSs operating in the Cracow area. Next time you write something, do some research dude. It shows how ignorant you brits are, especially taking into account the recent Brexit vote !
- isostatic 9y agoOnly 52% of us.
- DanBC 9y agoOnly 26% voted for Brexit. There's a bunch of people not eligible to vote; eligible but not-voting; as well as those voting against brexit.
- matteo789 9y agoAnd nobody of your enlightened politicians explained to your oh-so-clever nation, that Switzerland has already tried to negotiate passporting rights despite remaining outside of the EU, but failed? That's why you have had the swiss banks mostly operating from the UK. They sold you the immigrant-hatred propaganda, especially against the well-assimilated Polish, while it's the Muslims making most damage to your society, but spared for the sake of political correctness and you 'swallowed it like young Pelicans' as we say in Poland. Please..., you are a case study for a democracy failure.
- bogomipz 9y ago>"Other quality airlines have outsourced IT or part of their IT operations, but they are careful about choosing their IT vendors" I'm not so sure about that. Here are 4 of the 5 big carriers in the U.S and they have all had national outages within the last year due to "IT." Delta: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/30/delta-outage-airline-technology-problems/97250834/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/30/delta-outage-... SouthWest: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-airlines-computer-outage-causing-massive-delays/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-airlines-computer-outa... United: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-united-flight-delays-0209-biz-20170208-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-united-flight-dela... Jet Blue: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2016/01/14/jetblue-flights-slowed-data-center-outage/78795316/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/...
- pan1c 9y agoI live in Atlanta - and as someone mentions below there have been pretty big IT outages at Delta etc too. But - without any evidence whatsoever wholesale blaming of Indian and Polish companies seem somewhat unfair. Until, we have a postmortem and know this in more detail - it appears that you just have a axe to grind.
- otterley 9y agoWe don't know yet what failed, let alone why. What sense does it make to jump to conclusions so quickly? And what difference does it make whether the error -- if indeed the root cause was an error, which hasn't yet been established -- was made by someone in India vs. someone in Poland vs. someone in the UK?
- bitmapbrother 9y ago>Quantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one And where do you think that work awarded to IBM is being done? Chances are it's India. As for IBM being reliable - are we talking about the same company known for its brazen incompetence in Australia?
- exadeci 9y agoJust send them feedback! https://gfycat.com/AnyLegalBlackmamba https://gfycat.com/AnyLegalBlackmamba
- madeofpalk 9y ago> Quantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one. Actually, Qantas has a huge 'workforce' of Tata onsite as well. Of course all the newer and 'more exciting' stuff is ran either by in-house resources or 'digital agencies' - the more expensive kind of outsourcing. (FWIW, it's Qantas - Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services)