Ah the joys

As someone who has been through the mill, albeit with a bank rather than an oil-giant, I can only too happily confirm the stories about what is lost of which foremost is the goodwill of the staff being sold on (or is that TUPE'd).

To make matters worse, IT was not even all outsourced to one company and so what little there was that did continue working soon became unusable as routine work on kit and normal lifetime upgrades became subject to a 'whose turn is it to make the bucks' fight.

After a couple of years we were all bought back with exactly the same justification used as when we were sold.

Go figure

Anon from shame as given the chance to jump and run I whimped out.

Question for "Welcome my new corporate overlord"

In response to "let me clear up the popular misconception"

Did you never notice the style of deal where an outsourcing giant will swallow up staff, run the operations for 6 months from the UK then claim that no money can be made so the work should be shipped oversea's to an army of waiting Engineers?

I'll say your right, on day 1 of the new deal most people will still be in the UK, just don't assume the same on day 180 or day 365.

Oh, for a New Gusher/Virgin Well.

"Internally, most people think it's a bad idea to outsource core IT because it is in fact core business on the Exploration and Production side. It's just the higher-ups who want to seem proactive."

I would agree that it is a bad idea, AC, but with no one higher-up with any new ideas, what else to do? Looking busy rearranging deck-chairs/training native proxies doesn't look so bad whenever there is nothing in the pipeline/the store cupboard is empty/the boss is compromised/the fiddle exposed/the natives are restless.

so wrong ?

...it's startling that here we are, many of us confessing to earning our a money by structuring or delivering outsourcing deals, yet largely acknowledging that this type of deal is wrong ethically, professionally, practically and technically.

...and yet, as one commenter put it, "Senior Management appear to be addressing costs". - and they plow on, learning nothing from repeated failure and pain of the effort.

We, the few charged with delivering these broken solutions, know full well that true costs with be far higher than than any saving shown on the bottom line.

But it's not a new story - but an old one with a technical twist.

I read somewhere, that the 1st thing you should, upon reaching a senior management type position - is to declare a 5 year strategy to do something or the other...doesn't matter what....but introduce it with a fanfare, fully confident in its success, knowing full well you and many other won't be around in 5 years time in any case - having been catapulted up the ladder by your wonderful strategy.