Posts by EyeBeeM

Largest advertising company in the world still wincing after NotPetya punch

One word "Redundancies"

So obvious this was going to happen, When IBM won the contract they guaranteed staff their jobs for 12 months. Once this was up they reduced the staff who transferred from WPP by 90%. Out of the remaining 10% left most left after seeing the direction (Down) IBM was taking WPP. IBM and WPP lost experienced knowledgable staff and even with knowledge transfer IBM are absolutely clueless.

This is only the tip of the iceberg and I am glad its being exposed. The IT service at WPP is shocking since IBM took over. Any member of staff, excluding directions who have to tow the party line will tell you the same.

Simply calls such as password resets which used to take minutes now takes hours with IBM's call centre. A new user setup needs at least a weeks notice, this doesn't work in advertising when staff are brought on last minute to deal with new pitches/accounts.

Martin Sorrell couldn't care less, he has 2 full time WPP IT support staff, so never needs to contact IBM, unlike the rest of his staff.

IBM are traded on their name and past glory. The IBM of today is nothing like what is used to be, run by accounts and suits. Don't even get me started on Watson... Does anyone know what it actually does!

Former WPP Staff

I worked at a WPP company during the IBM transition and I am surprised it took so long for something like this to happen.

The entire process was so badly run, staff who transferred from WPP were demoralised as they knew redundancy were on the way. IBM management didn’t have a clue about how an advertising company works. Their support model might work at a bank but a creative agency is a different kettle of fish.

All IBM wanted was knowledge transfer, once they had this they got rid of staff. During my 6 years, prior to IBM we never had an incident like this.

WPP lost some fantastic talented engineers and I feel sorry for the staff who have to go through a call centre in India before waiting for day to have a simple IT issue resolved.

Outsourcing never provide a better quality of service, its decided by accountant who only see the bottom line. I wonder how much money was lost for all the down time, clearly these figures are never factored into these so-called cost saving exercises.