Reply to: Anyone heard of LogicaCMG ?

[OwlHoot]

To put my original question in context, in case anyone is interested (probably not, as it really isn't very interesting at all), I started a contract with a company called Aquila in Victoria street, in the Transco Billing section. (Aquila did, and I dare say still does, quite a bit of work for Transco.)

Then, following the Enron scandal, Aquila sold this to CMG, who had offices round the corner from Victoria station.

[Spacecadet]

I heard about the open policy of CVs and pay packets (quite strange)

Don't the caudwell group have a similar open pay packet policy... thats another company from the AMS school of sales or nothing

[bobspud]

The pay thing was simple. Every year you got a review, and you got the chance to look at your peers files to see what their package was. You also got your billing figures for the year. At that point you could say I billed 200 days at 1k per day you payed me £70K my highest peers are on 140K and billed 400K I want to move into a 6 figure bracket in the next 3 years so I want to take 10k for the next three years and I will undertake to add more value to ensure you don't notice the extra costs involved $$ I got quite a nice package in those days for a permie I also pulled in a lot of added benefit by growing accounts and helping my customer by delivering projects early. It all went tits up after logica's much cheapness model came in the door. The new business model was go in cheap then screw the customer on change control and move on. At the time I was trying to explain why I was trying to set up a sales pitch for an existing customer the logibod involved couldn't grasp that a customer might actually want us back... There was a wake for the company when logica finally wound up CMG over 500 people turned up

here's an account from another CMGer

Off My Chest: CMG Wake

One of the richest share holders for CMG was a Woman called Barbera Ward she retired well towards the top of the uk rich list after joining the company as a secretary at the begining. She chartered concord for some of her work collegues and they had a massive party somewhere sunny. I think it was at Richard Bransons island


Peronally I hope DR Martin REED chokes to death on one of the many millions of train sets he has bought with all the money he didn't want to share...



CMG R.I.P.

[Going Strong]

I was with them for about 2 years some time ago and totally agree with my views about them

Paid crap
Outsourced most of the work
Lost there biggest client Vodafone
I heard about the open policy of CVs and pay packets (quite strange)

all in all not the best of the bunch

[Paddy]

Many years ago when the merger occured I was invited for an interview there and was told that 'there is no secrets there and each employee can read any other employee's C.V.'

I just thought that was a bit unconventional, so I didn't apply. I thought all of Logica was farmed out to India, I know that Logica CMG is their I.T. finance arm but I thought that it had been severely reduced in the U.K., they once had big offices in London (Euston & Poland Street) ... all gone now ...

I think that is their get-out because nobody from Logica is smart enough to work out file system rights.

[swamp]

Logica were binned from my last gig (public sector). As far as I could tell they mostly produced lots of useless documentation. Very little code was ever written, and even less was deployed.

I felt sorry for the guys though. One chap had billed five years for the same client at a senior rate, and he was told if he didn't find himself a new gig he would be eligible for redundancy.... FFS he had to find his own gig for Logica!

[Sysman]

To answer Paddy's point; I think companies still use them because they're very good at the golf course sales pitch technique.

I worked on some software written by them back in the 1970s and can well imagine how the golf course featured. They were doing the graduates thing back then.

We rewrote large chunks of that application.

Most of it in fact.

[fullyautomatix]

Yep, it's called Logica now. I don't know about anywhere else, but in Holland the name CMG was ruined in 2002-2003 recession when they got their lawyers to declare all their permies to be temps, somehow got that through a Dutch employment court, then sacked anybody who wasn't on a client project, with very little severance compensation. Basically, after that nobody with experience wanted to work for them. So, one name change later, they started hiring lots of naive new graduates, and are now continuing with the same old practises of charging clients an arm and a leg, paying people a pittance, paying the directors huge bonusses and treating people like disposable nappies; tulip on them and then chuck them out.

To answer Paddy's point; I think companies still use them because they're very good at the golf course sales pitch technique.

Bunch of tossers; they don't deserve to eat the dangleberries from a camel's arse.

WHS! Mitch has put it more eloquently than I could ever manage.

[Mich the Tester]

Yep, it's called Logica now. I don't know about anywhere else, but in Holland the name CMG was ruined in 2002-2003 recession when they got their lawyers to declare all their permies to be temps, somehow got that through a Dutch employment court, then sacked anybody who wasn't on a client project, with very little severance compensation. Basically, after that nobody with experience wanted to work for them. So, one name change later, they started hiring lots of naive new graduates, and are now continuing with the same old practises of charging clients an arm and a leg, paying people a pittance, paying the directors huge bonusses and treating people like disposable nappies; tulip on them and then chuck them out.

To answer Paddy's point; I think companies still use them because they're very good at the golf course sales pitch technique.

Bunch of tossers; they don't deserve to eat the dangleberries from a camel's arse.

[MarillionFan]

I don't claim to know much. But I do know that LogicaCMG are a bunch of incompetants.

WSS

When I was there it was a graduate money making machine. Terrible.

[eliquant]

Many years ago when the merger occured I was invited for an interview there and was told that 'there is no secrets there and each employee can read any other employee's C.V.'

I just thought that was a bit unconventional, so I didn't apply. I thought all of Logica was farmed out to India, I know that Logica CMG is their I.T. finance arm but I thought that it had been severely reduced in the U.K., they once had big offices in London (Euston & Poland Street) ... all gone now ...

[SueEllen]

I don't claim to know much. But I do know that LogicaCMG are a bunch of incompetants.

Pay peanuts get monkeys

[HairyArsedBloke]

I am so glad that I am not alone in my opinion of them.

[MaryPoppins]

I don't claim to know much. But I do know that LogicaCMG are a bunch of incompetants.

[Paddy]

I have done very well clearing up the mess left by various Logica projects. Why companies still use them I don’t know.