"Whoa! I had the call at 8:00am this morning and I was flabbergasted. My first thoughts was of this release; Xerox has become the latest technology heavyweight to issue a major round of layoffs.The company revealed on Thursday that the sagging economy has forced a reorganisation plan which could see some 3,000 jobs eliminated. Such a cut would remove five per cent of Xerox's total workforce.
Global Imaging Systems, Inc. is owned by Xerox, Global has agreed to buy Comdoc.
For the sake of almost 3,000 people who lost their jobs, was this a good move by a Xerox owned company? Heck in Rochester the other day, Xerox laid off 40% of the HR department!
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, however I'd like to see where all of the money came from. You don't go out and lay off 3,000 workers and then buy one of the largest independent dealers for office equipment in the US."
The man has a point. How about $10 million for an employee transition project? We can spread really smart Xeroids all over the country. Plus supply of manufacturers with awesome experienced people. Plus baby boomers don't want to work full time. They just need a good health insurance, a basic pension, and broadband excess. Plus we have to figure out a way to conserve institutional memory. Plus we don't have to spend $385 million to save $200 million a year going forward. Any projection of savings in 2010 is just bookeeping bs anyway.
Why wouldn't we get this right? We get back on the side of the angels and allow Ann and Ursula to hold their heads high.
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If you knew what ComDoc was all about you would know why they invested in a highly profitable employee owned company.
ReplyDeletesorry if the post wasn't clear. From everything I've read ComDoc does indeed sound like a first class outfit.
ReplyDeleteThe issue raised in the posted quoted from Print4Pay Hotel blog and in my comments was questioning how Xerox had the money to make a purchase and could not find the money to help their own employees make a transition to another line of work or some new kind of work that might support the Xerox mission.
ComDoc is a pig in a poke outfit. I know first hand. I was an exec who used to work there. They are good at marketing "ethical" behavior, all untrue. The turnover rate was 52% annually when I worked there.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I was afraid of. It's why the original post started with "oops!" I think the problem is that globals are so desperate to scale that they think they have to buy instead of build.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what Xerox paid for ComDoc much less GLobal Services. It was reported that Ricoh paid $1.5 billion for Ikon. Meanwhile, they have to borrow the money to buy or take it from earnings.
Meanwhile, they think the only way to lower expenses is by firing their own people instead of repurposing them.
Not only do globals move slowly. When the move fast that often get it just wrong., In my not so humble opinion.