IBM email fiasco complicates sales deals, is worse than biz is letting on
It&#x27;s really remarkable how out of touch large companies can get; especially after years of cost cutting and out sourcing.<p>I once worked at a company that who, after 15 years of RIFs, offshoring and chasing ever increasing margins, finally cut too deep. One of the critical people cut was my boss, the VP over a product that was an add on to one of the companies major products. Due to accounting the profits showed up on the main products financials, but our product was a critical enabling piece.<p>My boss was RIF&#x27;d, simply called one day and told not to come in again, ever. Like some low level employee. After the boss was gone there was literally no one in the executive team who knew anything about the product, it&#x27;s customers or customer commitments ie signed contracts for features to be delivered. It was a beautiful train wreck I watched first hand. It was amazing to see the VP who did take over slowly learn the magnitude of the f-ck up over the course of several months. They lost several customers. These customers were pissed and literally had no one to talk to at our company. We had support reps fielding calls from CEOs at our customers complaining. A few law suits ensued. It was glorious to see.