#costcutting

Big trouble for Dell right now as the AI oasis is an actual mirage. Severe cost cutting is about to happen with massive layoffs about to hit.

Q3 results "Revenue of $1.96 billion , up 28.3 percent, or 27.0 percent in constant currency"...."Operating cash flow of $159 million, up $43 million year-over-year.
Free cash flow(1) of $131 million, up $24 million year-over-year."

These are all up, yet everything else is down. "Headwinds, inflation, uncertain government blah blah" stock is tanking, entire company is on yard sale duty, your coworkers are disappearing.

Why do these numbers not add up?

Skimming off the top? SLT stowing extra cash away? What is happening?

Feels like a lot of waste. Where is the value? Can we not do the same with less? Other companies seem to do fine. I don’t know where the value add or money savings comes from anymore outside RIF’s.

Maybe just reset every leader. Don’t know if any are actually well liked by their own teams even.

It’s disheartening to see the direction SAP is heading. Having been part of this company for so long, it’s painful to witness the current layoffs and the uncertainty many colleagues are facing. At the same time, I’ve learned that HRBPs from across the globe are flying to Germany for a week-long in-person meeting which could easily cost around 200k$
In moments like these, it’s fair to question whether such travel is truly necessary. Could these costs have supported a few more roles or extended employment for impacted staff? Many of us on the engineering side feel the weight of these decisions deeply we continue to build and innovate while wondering. We engineers are building the company and the HR and the support functions are enjoying it. Does board leaders have become so week to not even as these questions to HR Leader and the CFO who is making these hasty decisions
I hope leadership reflects on these choices with transparency, empathy, and financial prudence. Strong, people-first decision-making is more important now than ever.
Do the board leaders have become so week to not even as these questions to HR Leader and the CFO who is making these hasty decisions?
SAP has become #AntiImmigrant #AntiEmployee

Used to be that if you got a job here, you were set. You could actually plan a future, take pride in the work. Now it’s all about cost cuts. They’ve traded loyalty for churn, and it shows.

With the holidays coming up and all these much need layoffs being executed, how is the business continuity planning going, Alvind ? Shareholders should ask the question and you continually lie whenever you go in front of the media to talk about layoffs :

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/exV3avZIa9w

Net hiring up ? where exactly ? India as usual ? Who gives a darn when you are running a public American company and Americans are being laid off. Your compensation and those of your Pipmunks needs to be re-balanced (downward direction) for your failures. You are getting excessive compensation for your lack of management. As a CEO, you are an abject failure, not a great employee. And you contradict yourself in the same interview and you know it. You are an excess to IBM requirements.

Does age and tenure have anything to do with who gets picked for lay off. Wouldn't company have to pay more in severance if they let go someone with 25 years with the company as oppose to 6 years? So last in first out would save them more money?

Country specific as each European countries have different layoff laws.
A lot of field sales will go.
Accounts will be managed centrally in a lot of cases. Enterprise contracts won’t be renewed as they come up on term.
This is what happens when you run a company into the ground.
The international VBG backbone network will massively shrink in size, countries will be exited..
the on again off again BT global JV or merger seems to at least being discussed again.. And or rumours of VBG enterprise going to HCL.. that I doubt though as when MNS went to HCL they let HCL RIF everyone who transitioned over.
Can count on 1 hand the amount of large clients left… cost base is approx double actual revenue has been like this for a decade and year on year getting worse.
Basically looking at a VBG exit strategy internationally.. This is what Dan meant in Q3 analyst call - we have parts of the business that are costing us Billions in margin.

Schulman is planning cost cuts that are likely to result in the reduction of about 15,000 jobs, The Journal reported Thursday. Verizon currently employs about 100,000 people.

A source familiar with the situation told The Post that the 15,000 figure is “in the ballpark” and that layoff notices are expected to be sent out to affected employees next week.

Verizon offered $4 million retention bonuses to two top executives — consumer group head Sowmyanarayan Sampath and finance chief Anthony Skiadas — to keep them through at least the end of 2027, according to the Journal.

Schulman told a Wall Street Journal event this week that Verizon needs to get “scrappier and less bureaucratic.”

https://nypost.com/2025/11/14/business/ousted-verizon-boss-could-still-pocket-most-of-20m-salary-as-company-cuts-15000-jobs-report/

These major changes being executed by Verizon's new CEO, Dan Schulman, are way overdue at the obscenely bloated and underperforming telecom behemoth. Relentless price increases, undifferentiated products & services, absolutely horrible customer service and sheer corporate arrogance has driven many customers away at a time that competition has intensified in the mature telecommunications industry. Speaking as a customer it's about time this rotten and miserable company gets shaken up! Best of luck to all my career compadres going thru this period of upheaval at Verizon. P.s., Knowing Dan Schulman personally, I told you this was coming!

Verizon's Layoff Plan Exposes Growing Divide Between Investors and Employees

Verizon's New CEO Sees the Need to Implement Aggressive Changes Including Job Cuts

14 November 2025, 2:29 PM GMT

New Verizon CEO to intensify cost transformation and expense base restructuring, including job layoffs.
Verizon's sweeping cost-cutting plans are triggering sharply different reactions from the two groups whose futures hinge on the company's next moves. Investors see the restructuring as a long-awaited correction—one that could streamline operations, protect dividends, and lift a stock that has lagged behind competitors for years. But inside the company, employees describe a climate of mounting fear and uncertainty as reports of mass layoffs circulate with little internal guidance from leadership.

This widening gap between Wall Street optimism and workforce anxiety has become the defining feature of CEO Dan Schulman's early tenure. As the company prepares for what could be the largest layoff in its history, workers say they are bracing for a painful transformation, while shareholders look on with cautious approval. The result is a company moving in two emotional directions at once: confidence at the top, and unease on the ground.

A Gloomy Christmas for 20K Employees
Christmas 2025 will be different for an American telecom giant and gloomy for its employees. News reports say Verizon Communications will implement a massive workforce reduction of up to 20,000 as soon as next week. Also, up to 200 stores will be converted into franchises to be operated by independent owners.

Verizon is downsizing, and the twin news regarding job layoffs and new business direction are the initial moves of Dan Schulman as Verizon's CEO. The former PayPal chief assumed the post on 6 October 2025.

On his first day as CEO, Schulman already laid out his priorities. 'We are going to maximize our value propositions, reduce our cost to serve, and optimize our capital allocation to delight our customers and deliver sustainable long-term growth for our shareholders,' he said.

Aggressive Transformation
During the Q3 2025 earnings presentation in late October, Shulman shared his vision on how Verizon will return to growth.

'We are going to take bold and fiscally responsible action to redefine Verizon's trajectory at this critical inflection point for our company. We will rapidly shift to a customer-first culture —one that thrives on delighting our customers,' Schulman said.

'These will not be incremental changes. We will aggressively transform our culture, our cost structure, and the financial profile of Verizon in order to put our customers first, compete effectively, and deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders,' he added. His predecessor, Hans Vestberg, was network-first focused.

Financial Highlights
In the three months ended 30 September 2025, total operating increased 1.5% to $33.8 billion compared to Q3 2024, while net income climbed 48.2% year-over-year to $5 billion. On a year-to-date basis, the bottom line increased 18.1% to $15.2 billion from a year ago. After nine months, free cash flow reached $15.8 billion, up 9% year-over-year.

Total broadband connections rose 11.1% to more than 13.2 million versus the same quarter last year, including 306,000 broadband net additions. The partnership formed with Tillman Global Holdings' Eaton Fiberlast October will expand Verizon's broadband offering.

Schuman notes that, for the past few years, Verizon has relied too heavily on price increases for financial growth. He believes that over-reliance on price without subscriber growth isn't sustainable. He vows to discontinue the strategy.

Instead, the customer-first culture will simultaneously drive a much more efficient cost structure that fully supports incremental investments. Customers will delight in this without the decline in margins.

'My top strategic imperative for Verizon is to grow our customer base profitably across our mobility and broadband subscription businesses.' Schuman said.

No market success
Schulman acknowledged that Verizon's stock performance has been disappointing for shareholders. The share price stands at $41.11, up less than 10% year-to-date, with a three-year total return of 31.35%.

Despite this, Verizon, with a market capitalization of $172 billion, has increased its dividend for 19 consecutive years. Current shareholders benefit from a 6.71% dividend yield following the September hike.

Largest Layoff Ever
Verizon has yet to confirm the shocking news about the impending job layoffs. If true, 15% of the total workforce will be out of the company payroll. Remember, Schulman emphasized at the onset that aggressive change is needed through cost transformation and a restructuring of the expense base.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/verizons-layoff-plan-exposes-growing-divide-between-investors-employees-1754943

on 11/23/26 TransUnion just laid off hundreds of amazing people in their CTO technology org. People around the world were laid off. They cut way to deep this time and I expect a huge performance ripple effect in Q1. 100% their CTO Venkat is about to sink the ship with these cuts in order to hit unrealistic cost savings targets tied to his bonus. Moral is horrible.

Saw a very talented guy being laid off for cost-cutting and redundancy.

Funny part, Many of his ideas improved TU's core products and saved a ton of money for the company. I as one of his previous manager was more devastated than he was. He was moved from my project to Onetru forcibly for his talent, now laid off because of onetru/onedev's management failure.

Neustar management is firing loyal, talented full time employees in favor of contract for hires which I bet they have an under the desk deal to line their pockets.

Walgreens hourly workers set to suffer pay loss: report - Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com/walgreens-cut-paid-holiday-hourly-workers-christmas-thanksgiving-11040090

Add a quarterly reminder on your phone starting Feb 9 (~ VCIP townhall) to ask your leader how opex per boe has changed since Jan 1 2026 and what are we doing about it. We cannot stop asking this ever. Do not let them surprise you in a few years that costs are up another 20%. Hold them accountable.

If you see cost creep around you, just play it cool and write to your VP. They'll like it. Skip middle management. They'll learn.

CEP if you are reading this you need to create an anonymous cost creep hotline.

With any luck, we can avoid the next one. 10% cuts are large, 25% is derilection of duty and utter mismanagement, with consequences only for the rest of us.

Don't just watch it happen to you. The food on your family's table depends on it. Good luck. Add that phone reminder

Our new CEO is being paid a $1.5M annual salary, with up to $50M in performance incentives.

That’s equivalent to 500+ employees making $100K.

It’s hard to listen to Joe Russo talk about surgical cost reductions when our CEO is being paid an annual salary equivalent to an entire market.

Does our CEO work 500 times harder than the average corporate employee? Why don’t individual employees receive bonuses that are potentially 33 times than their salary? Imagine an STI of $3.3M on your $100K salary.

If Verizon were serious about cost reductions, it could save tens of millions by trimming the oozing fat at the top.

Wow just heard on radio not only 15,000 by next week ,but that Dan said more to come and layoffs and cost cutting will be a way of life at Verizon along with most corporate wireless stores will not exist anymore only 3rd party dealers

We are guiding for an additional billion in cost savings and EB said on the call it would come from the same structural changes (headcount) as the billion we hit this year. Exciting times!

The company has been successfully programmed. Why do we need the thousand plus people employed in this group now?

This is 100%. The layoff is not because AI is magically changing things, or because clients need less work. The nature of work is changing, projects are smaller and more focused. But, behind all of this is the need for free cashflow which can be achieved through higher sales (not going to happen) or cut in expenses (it's happening right now). She needs cash to finance AI infrastructure build out, and the only way to find the $$$ is to cut people. She has no other options (ok, she can go in debt, but that's always bad). So, she's repeating the same thing that AWS (30K cuts), MSFT (25K cuts), META (20K Cuts) and others are doing.

I wish all of us good luck.

Layoffs are every other week these days. Gotta cut cut cut those costs. Still need to get under 90k employees. Only 35k more to go. Eventually it will hit the techs, but I’m sure only the junior most people to reduce costs.
Is 90k something that has been officially confirmed as the end goal or are people just guessing?

Just heard this morning; strong possibility the North Haven campus will relocate and close down. CT costs continue to be too high for MDT corporate. No timeline

Got a heads up from my Director new store formats are in the works. Won’t hit immediately but will be part of our next phase. The SM role as we know it is gone. It will transform into more of a AM type role on paper. Reduce stores down to 2 Managers. And Directors will be more like Indirect store managers where they oversee multiple stores and spend more time in stores more like a SM but not as hands on. No more cushy jobs. Basically a lot of the same responsibility without the pay and title for both Directors and SMs. It’s going to be a rough transition and the idea is hopefully some of the top high paid talent will leave or su-k it up and take the pay cut very similar to the one team strategy. The goal is reduce all retail stores and push more traffic to indirect and online. Verizon is willing to take some hits to reduce cost. Verizon has already lost just compare stock prices to T-Mo. This is the liquidation fire sale waive the white flag show them your belly and tuck your tail type strategy. We’re done, the fight is over. Store closures will not be based on volume more based on location and surrounding Verizon doors. If your store does 300 PGAs but lifetime all in have 250 deacts your phone net adds are only 50. Compared to a store that does 200 but will net say 150. Verizon would rather have the indirect take on the cost. The definition of under performing stores has changed to focus on total net phone adds. If you were around during COVID think Covid era type staffing and support. It will be very similar. It will be up to the remaining few employees to user customers to online or AI supported customer service. With little transactions in store so why keep larger stores around you can accomplish that with a kiosk basically why pay the overhead to tell customers to go online or call customer service.

“Aggressively sunset or exit legacy businesses”
Timestamp: 0:19:06 to 0:20:17

“While we narrow our focus to invest in key growth areas, we will also aggressively sunset or exit legacy businesses where we don't see a clear path to profitable market leadership. We have a large opportunity to unleash meaningful margin improvement by doing so, and we will talk about this in more detail in January.”

“Divest and exit legacy businesses”
Timestamp: 0:28:31 to 0:29:35

“We’re going to do a hard look at portfolio rationalization and divest and exit legacy businesses where we don’t see a clear path to profitability.”

“Simpler, leaner, scrappier business” and “aggressively reducing our entire cost base”
Timestamp: 0:17:56 to 0:19:06

“We will be a simpler, leaner, and scrappier business. This work is overdue and will be multi-year and an ongoing way of life for us… We will fund these investments by aggressively reducing our entire cost base.”

“Portfolio optimization”
Timestamp: 0:43:32 to 0:44:19

“We have parts of our business that are costing us billions of dollars of margin, and I think we can think much more clearly about how do we invest in growth areas and divest or exit those that are not that for us. We'll spend more time on that in January…”

“Everything is on the table for us”
Tony Skiadas CFO – Timestamp: 0:46:32 to 0:47:12

“We're looking at everything, and everything is on the table for us. It also entails being very efficient with our capital spend.”

Source:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VZ/earnings/VZ-Q3-2025-earnings_call-364743.html

So ADIPEC just wrapped up, and it seems we managed to send a lot of folks to Abu Dhabi to support. Wondering what the final price tag of that ended up being. Seems I saw on another company's page that they put a conservative number on a C-Suite attending at around 50K each (flights, lodging, logistics, incidentals, loss productivity while there). For Sr. Managers, it was near 35K, and for rank and file (non-business class flyers) it was in the area of 20K. Add all that up and it's crazy.

Know we need to be there, but it seems we send a lot of folks who use it more like a vacation and an opportunity to "team build" with the other managers.

No worries, just cut a couple of heads when you return to pay get the numbers where you need them to wrap up Q4 - no need for those folks to do any work.

All aside, consider the travel that is denied for your own team and than run some numbers on the cost to fly Houston to Abu Dhabi (business), stay at the Ritz or like (for ELT), logistics to move folks around, team dinners and the like and the work that has to be pushed back a week. It's not a small number, folks.

But we did win a couple of awards and booked a shitload of air miles for that vacation next year.

We can easily save money by freezing hiring, freezing travel, and penny pinching spending.

Oh wait... But we did that already.

But why are projects delayed???!!

I'm the VP of inflated egos and I don't understand! I hired two 3rd world contractors to take the place of that principle engineer. According to my advanced calculations... 2/1, we should have twice the productivity!

Well I've got a solution...

I'll create a new corporate team of VP's, give it a cool name, and our meetings will save money!

Winning. Too much winning!

Cisco is jumping on the 2025 "AI-washing" bandwagon and will cut legacy roles and hire specialists. Total predicted: 8,500 jobs cut with severance of 6 months + stock vesting acceleration

Why?
The internal AI enshitification is in full bloom (employees realizing AI is bollocks)
Cisco's partner event last week was a wake up call (thoroghly underwhelming. Full of vapourware. snoozefest)

Cisco is pushing for a $2B annual cost savings amid AI restructuring.
the rumors are for 2,000-3,000 job cuts but a real possibility of 10% slash of their 85K headcount (8,500 jobs cut)

The numbers are looking weak.
FY25 revenue stagnated at $56.65B (flat YoY), with networking down 5% despite 6% product growth. At average of $200K total comp/person (salary + benefits) an 8,500 gutting would yield $1.7B in savings. This aligns with 2024 12% (9K) trim that boosted margins 2pts

EPS guidance signals a ton of pressure. Deeper cuts fund $1B+ AI capex while offsetting tariff risks.

which shall it be? 3k or 8.5k?

If AI is supposed to replace mundane, everyday tasks then why wouldn’t we reduce GP headcount further? Some of these GPs do not add any strategic value, they seldom make critical decisions and don’t have the competency to lead the people through 2030. We can cut further cost to fund the 2030 ambition and still attain sound input through AI.

Rumors are leaking out that once again McKinsey is bilking IBM for some serious cash and IBM seems to be going down the path of this McKinsey Three Horizons of Growth nonsense to grow sales and cut costs I guess. Inquiring minds would like to know how many tens of millions IBM has paid McKinsey going back to Gerstner where he was a director there for 13 years 1965-1978. Lets guess since Gerstner came in 1993 IBM has shelled out $3M/year to McKinsey. 32 years x $3M (likely more) is a cool $96,000,000. For what?

1 of a thousand failed examples here...IBM's Personal Computer division reached $4 billion in revenue by 1984, which was more than twice that of Apple at the time. The company continued to be a major player in the global PC market in the following years.
But by 2004, when IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo for $1.75B, annual sales for the division were approximately $10 billion. The company faced increasing competition from "clone" manufacturers throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, which eroded its market dominance and profit margins.

IBM completely F'd up it's wonderful PC business by not properly protecting the HW IP from Intel and the SW IP from MSFT. Combine that with IBM F'ing up MCA micro channel architecture, Token Ring, SNA and OS/2 and that is tens of billions of dollars lost to ineptness.

TODAY: Lenovo turned a $1.75B investment into $57,000,000,000 and IBM approx $62,000,000,000. An unknown Chinese firm in 2005 now rivals IBM for annual sales?! Could IBM use $60B of revenue for the next forever?!

IBM's latest Hail Mary here with McKinsey => https://flevy.com/topic/mckinsey-three-horizons-of-growth/case-growth-strategy-redesign-professional-services-competitive-market?srsltid=AfmBOoqmaY7ObrlfwqN8tDc9rAtBsbhQri_INrMLx8-zVOaRvYhjsN-9

https://investors.solventum.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/135/solventum-reports-third-quarter-2025-financial-results

Reeks of Inge's $500M/year claimed savings which never manifested. SAP started circulation at 3M in something like 2010, with the fever dream reaching maximum levels in perhaps 2014-2018. They had mandatory "Here, you matter" meetings and plastered the walls of the Quad with SAP propaganda (graphics of people holding a red ball and "You play a part" or whatever nonsense).

https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/3/NYSE_MMM_2016.pdf

My gut is that Transform for the Future is attempting to juice the stock based on returns that will never manifest. I wouldn't be surprised if it is a rebrand of 3M's SAP promises, as the whole "Transform for the Future" verbiage is so vague. What are they spending $500M on, and where will the $500M/year come from? Could they really mean "We're going to spend $500M to complete 3M's partial SAP roll-out" and re-promising the same savings as 3M did in 2015?

I noted that "innovation" is put last, while redundant terms (cost structure and operational efficiency) are up front. Only savings are cited, not increased sales or new products (who are our "customers," again?). Doesn't inspire confidence that we'll be, you know, actually improving patients' lives. Feels like monkeying with financial levers to "create value" (C-suite money bags) where there is none.

Curious what others think.

Startling statistic, likely the start of a trend.

“U.S.-based employers cut more than 150,000 jobs in October, marking the biggest reduction for the month in more than 20 years, a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas said on Thursday as industries adopt AI-driven changes and intensify cost cuts.”

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/layoffs-us-october-surge-two-decade-high-challenger-data-shows-2025-11-06/

Or do we not make enough money to be considered "cutting costs?"

As always. That’s why we’ve been shedding competence, experience, and institutional knowledge like there’s no tomorrow.

There’s been talk, from a source I trust, that leadership has been exploring workforce reductions. The numbers being floated include cuts of 15% up to roughly a quarter (25%) of staff under each director across most departments. The focus appears to be aggressive cost savings, and part of that includes looking at compensation levels and where employees are in their career timelines. Officially, they can’t say that’s a factor, but it’s being quietly discussed.

What’s even more concerning is that some highly skilled employees are being targeted not because of performance, but because they don’t fit in with their immediate manager’s preferences, push back against the status quo, or are seen as difficult simply for having a different perspective. If someone isn’t aligned with their leader or is viewed as inconvenient when numbers need to be met, they become an easy choice.

It’s incredibly hard on the people who consistently show up, do exceptional work, and still go unrecognized especially when they’re not being supported or advocated for by leadership. This year feels different. The impact will be left on the shoulders of the people that are left behind, overwhelmed, burning out, and losing their sense of pride in the workplace. But with cost cutting being seen as 'essential' to the business, this is the direction things seem to be heading.

Particularly in our operations, I think we can be better at it from overhead and back office, , Kent Masters in earnings call today.

What does this mean?

Do more with less…… is what they tell us.

• American Airlines has begun layoffs following a recent financial loss, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
• The airline stated it is “right-sizing” its workforce, indicating a need to adjust staffing levels in response to performance and financial conditions.
• Details on the number of affected employees and specific departments were not disclosed in the article preview.
• The layoffs come amid broader cost-cutting measures across the aviation industry following weaker financial results.
• The announcement highlights continued challenges for major carriers as they balance recovery efforts with post-pandemic economic pressures.

Source: https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2025/11/05/american-airlines-layoffs-follow-recent-loss.html

BP has said it will ramp up efforts to hive off parts of the business, as the energy company reported a drop in profits in its latest quarter.

The company reported an underlying profit of $2.2bn (£1.7bn) in the three months ended in September. It marked a slowdown against its previous quarter, when it made a profit of $2.4bn, but beat analyst expectations of $1.98bn.

Its chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, who is under pressure from shareholders to reverse years of underperformance by moving away from renewable projects and increasing investments in oil and gas, said BP would push to sell off parts of the business faster.

“We are looking to accelerate delivery of our plans, including undertaking a thorough review of our portfolio to drive simplification and targeting further improvements in cost performance and efficiency,” he said.

Auchincloss, who has vowed to sell off $20bn of assets by the end of 2027, added that he expected the company would have sold or announced the sale of $5bn worth by the end of the year.

BP’s new chair, Albert Manifold, told staff on his first day in the job last month that the company needed to accelerate a plan to cut costs and sell assets.

BP has already managed to agree to sell its US onshore wind business to LS Power, as well as a deal to offload its Dutch retail fuel sites and its electric vehicle charging hubs.

This week, BP also agreed to sell its stakes in US shale assets for $1.5bn, including four Permian central processing facilities: Gand Slam, Bingo, Checkmate and Crossroads.

However, BP did not provide an update on the sale of its multibillion-dollar Castrol lubricants unit, which will be a central part of its plan to raise at least $20bn by 2027.

The company is under pressure from Elliott Management, the activist New York hedge fund that is known for its attempts to shake up listed companies. It has built up a stake in BP and has been pushing the company to cut costs.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/04/bp-asset-sales-fall-in-profits-oil-gas

As we continue to feel strains and increased costs as a company perhaps looking at top exec costs would help cut off some of that. Are there business travels at that level that are really needed or lunches for those in those positions that really need to be paid for? How are leaders paid more and advancing levels when others are not? How many additional senior leaders do we really need? Our members need to be able to reach live, direct workers. Happy employees lead to happy members and business which organically leads to overall better business. Telling associates benefits are more, AIP is less, and growth will not really happen is tough for lower ranking associates. I wonder when that piece of the puzzle will be realized by the business. Further consider these associates are also members trying to make it in the world today.