Rent a ghost

[lexington_spurs]

ClientCo is a formerly successful bank with hundreds and hundreds of contractors all across the organisation.

Some of these contractors are now being told that in order for their current contract to be renewed, they will have to use a Bob outsourcing company as the intermediary. The said Bob outsourcing company is now the 'strategic' partner.

Bob outsourcing company is not playing ball with this idea and has proposed that where it is being required to take on UK contractors at a low margin, it will also supply a ghost at a higher margin, thus making sure Bob Outsourcers still get a decent whack.

Example A - an experienced infra pm who is trying to deliver £100,000s of savings per month in a 'turning out the lights' project. He has been told that the cost of his contract can only be billed within the bank if he goes through Bob Outsourcers. Bob Outsourcers are adding what they describe as a "Unix SA" to the bill and have asked Infra PM guy if he wants to interview the said ghost. Infra PM guy has said no thank you to the opportunity to interview his offshore shadow and is mulling over the offer to renew.

[mudskipper]

Je ne comprends pas.

Surely client won't pay for non existent roles.

[NotAllThere]

Je ne comprends pas.

Surely client won't pay for non existent roles.

Let me explain. The people running the bank (and much of Western European industry) are a bunch of short-term-"thinking" morons. HTH

[lexington_spurs]

Je ne comprends pas.

Surely client won't pay for non existent roles.

They can and they are. In this case they are going to pay for most excellent "Unix SA" top of class etc who won't have system access because he/she is being assigned to a non-technical role.

[eek]

Let me explain. The people running the bank (and much of Western European industry) are a bunch of short-term-"thinking" morons. HTH

Yes but how on earth is that person getting through on an inter company transfer?

To describe the people at the bank who agreed this deal as morons is an insult to any actual morons.

Its like Sas and cretins. Don't overuse the word as you run out of options when you meet a real one.

[Notascooby]

Any chance of a hint of the clientco - as this may affect me in the future.

LBG have done the same with their contractor security architects, first tey had to go through a "partner" now partner has decided they are not as cost effective as off-shore so are slowly not renewing contracts leaving the role to a number of people following a checklist.

I think it will continue for 2 years, then there'll be a strategic head change and reversal but defo worse before it gets better.

[alreadypacked]

I think this client, is on my list of companies to have a RBS type outage in the not too distant future. The bobs in parts of the company use IM to "track" production support changes

I have closed my account with them.

Another company I did an audit report for changed the scope of the audit when I found simular stuff.

DOOMED I TELL YOU, DOOMED.

[lexington_spurs]

Any chance of a hint of the clientco - as this may affect me in the future.

There are clues in the OP, just not very specific ones.

And yes, this plague will probably affect us all in the future. They are not doing this across the board, in some cases they are letting Bob Outsourcer haggle with the contractor on rates.

[lexington_spurs]

I think this client, is on my list of companies to have a RBS type outage in the not too distant future. The bobs in parts of the company use IM to "track" production support changes

I have closed my account with them.

You are very wise. The RBS type outage was public-facing, so obviously they got leathered for it.

In this country, ClientCo is not retail, so they don't face that risk. However, a large amount of the global books/reporting is done in London. The operational drag of having Bobs at every level now is probably incalculable, certainly by dear old Bob himself. Even with the usual crutch of 'run books' and near constant panic conference calls, there are frequent significant and inexcusable feckups of quite staggering proportions.

In the past 3 months or so we've seen Bob:

- drop raw data before it was used/calced/reported on,
- run compression routines on raw data before it was used, instead of afterward
- run compression routines on data that just needed to be dropped
- attempt to drop and run compression on the same data at the same time

Nothing is done right, nothing is tested properly, nothing is communicated or escalated until production incidents are well into the forensic stage at which point Bob turns on himself and offers up some minion to take the blame.

Another company I did an audit report for changed the scope of the audit when I found simular stuff.

DOOMED I TELL YOU, DOOMED.

Standard.

[minestrone]

I would make sure I got someone good and feed the bugger plan b work.

It is a shit: state of affairs but play the game.