I heard the Command Center and Help Desk departments were recently outsourced before the New Year? And now from seeing this site, it seems that a lot of departments are being slashed? Wow. How is this affecting the day to day operations with the app support and daily prod processing that was always deemed critical?
39 replies (most recent on top)
@2jx I can see this divide in the Tech group as well - the highly educated, job unlikely to get fully outsourced soon versus the uneducated, repetitive, easily outsourced roles
@ce SO TRUE!
I’ve been there for years and played a key role in building that data center, along with the policies and controls that protected both investors and clients. In the short time since the Command Center and Helpdesk were offshored, Accenture has been given access to production systems and has caused several major application outages, some with financial impact. From my view having been in multiple tech departments inside the firm over the years, they clearly don't know how an enterprise should run and we've gone backwards significantly. I would love to see an external regulator come in and audit the controls again.
There’s a reason we had so few client-facing failures over the years, and that standard has clearly slipped. It almost feels like the company is being set up to fail. (some sarcasm , but not entirely)
As a 20-year associate with less than two years until retirement, I plan to stick it out and wait for them to let me go. Not worth looking for something new with less than 2 years left. But I'll admit, I'm done speaking my mind because no one is listening and the morale is cr-p.
@2k8 You are quite ignorant to what IT does at TRP. Have you ever been to any TRP Data Centers? All the infrastructure within them was "built" by TRP IT associates, much of it very complex in nature to support the business applications and functions required by a large financial firm, along with many applications that are critical for Traders and reconciliation that are all very time sensitive. The timeline to "outsource" all this IT work has been greatly expanded due to the lack of senior management understanding on what exactly the function of the Data Centers where, which is totally amazing to me in their lack of foresight. Anyhow, this overlook by management is now going to cost the company another 18 months or so in timeline to get everything migrated out of the DC's and into Cloud or Colo. So yeah, IT "builds" a lot of business-critical stuff!
This company is full of a$$#0l3s from TOP to BOTTOM, and I am glad I left.
Such hate and anger and nastiness. I congratulate Sharps on the culture he created at this firm. Outsource the whole f-ing place to India.
@2k7 You shouldn’t comment on things you have no knowledge about, it makes you sound stupid.
@2k7 agree. That’s why they’re so easy to offshore. If they actually built anything then offshoring would be very hard
@2fp IT doesn’t “build” anything. All our systems are vendor owned. Most major services are outsourced. IT does only maintenance work.
@2h5 True, but the majority of folks posting here seem to come from that segment of IT
@2h2 from what I’ve seen it’s the resentment of IT people towards people of a different ethnicity and culture that is shameful. Stop playing the victim.
@2ge Just because one person said it does not mean everyone in IT believes that. What a foolish commentary on your part.
@2ge surely you know there are many different roles within IT? And that many of them work with the business every day? The thousands of tech employees are not a monolith. The resentment towards IT on here is so weird
@2fp Some of you think that TRP is an investment bank; someone else said "it's just servers and databases and networks, all the same to us". With that, the institutional knowledge argument does not hold water, sorry.
@2fh IT builds and maintains the applications and systems the business uses to make informed investment related decisions. This is just the world we live in now. Offshoring all IT functions would lose a lot of institutional knowledge of the financial data and platforms, and has already proven to significantly extend the time it takes to deliver tech solutions for the business partners. IT isn’t all just help desk and call center.
That may be the only way to keep the company afloat. Outsource all support functions and focus on core business. Why does the firm need full time IT or non investment employees???
@262 most people here have no idea about the business side. They are happy to stay in their little tech world and come here to gripe that the fat is getting trimmed away.
In this business, there is no scope to “bleed money” since there is very little balance sheet. Any company that makes a loss goes out of business almost immediately.
@h6 This is not even accurate, the company is not 'bleeding money'. You keyboard warriors continue to show your ignorance.
@10g Yes, but it has occurred to me that there are 2 DSs...this is the newer one. The other is just complicit.
@h6 Looks like the entire ops team is here, shouldn't you all be on a Crit Sit?
@gr I actually thought it was a slot machine with the way it is bleeding money! From an IT perspective it all looks the same to us. The network, databases, systems, etc only understand load, storage, subnets, routing tables, etc. You are probably one of the people who still calls that Helpdesk thinking you will actually get help 🤣
Good luck with the layoffs, "Bob" 😉
@f9 that fact that you think TRP is an investment bank highlights why IT is a problem.
@cx Maybe when AI replaces the investment staff outflows will cease? Why would an investment bank be investing so much in using AI? 🤔🤔
@df Or you can scroll by the tech posts...just a thought? We have every right to post here as you do. You do realize that the name of this site is "The Layoff" and Tech is currently the one being "laid off", right? If anything WTF do you come here since you are all safe and secure! Enjoy your wonderful Helpdesk 🤣
@de ya, seems a divide amongst the groups. maybe part of the issue, infighting? without a robust tech side, T Rowe just doesn't function. Maybe not everyone realizes how much the tech side, and their specialty, provides for day to day operation. Tech drives the processes the business requirements. Who realizes the daily/nightly processing that is needed for T Rowe to function? I assume they are still using GPS, Charles River, AUM, and numerous other apps/processes for daily operations? All are affected in someway or somehow without the tech side. downgrade the service and there will be alot of headaches for everyone.
@cf All they were saying is don’t make this a tech forum since tech is just a support group. No need to get your knickers in a bunch or get xenophobic.
Keep it civil if you can. Just a thought.
Damn people have so much one-sided beef with tech LOL
@ce please tell us how you know more about the business of investing better than investment staff?
@ce hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Typical Tech - arrogant
Are you an overweight uneducated IT bro?
on-tech folks - then why do you even come to this site if your jobs are 100% safe? I guess you have nothing to worry about, right? I work with plenty of non-tech people who are not thrilled about what is happening to the company and us. The only people I can think of that would have reason to come here and constantly try an shutdown our conversations (in pretty much every post) would be HR or the architects of this debacle - RS, RR, CL, DS. You'll save a lot of money, true. But when all of IT is gone, you are left with most incompetents in that space, and outflows continue, what will the next move be? IT folks never created the outflows in the first place. Simple solution - if you are triggered by IT people discussing be replaced by foreigners - maybe avoid this website? Just a suggestion.
@bx I’ve worked in tech here for decades and can tell you from personal experience that in many, many cases tech knows how the business works better than the business itself.
@bz I believe that you believe that. Which is why you will remain an easily outsourced commodity.
@bx I don’t think tech really needs to understand T Rowe’s business tbh. Most people won’t work here forever, or have worked elsewhere, in completely different industries. Technical knowledge is what’s important, business analysts/product owners bridge the business gap. That’s how almost every tech team here operates.
@bs Perhaps but Tech is a commodity, 95% of you have no idea how the business actually operates.
@bf Absolutely correct.
The help desk is completely unusable now. I have computer issues that I just deal with now because there is no one to help. It slows me down and has caused lost hours and work, but there’s literally no one to help. What kind of financial firm with over 7,000 employees outsources their Help Desk?? Truly insane thinking.
@bf You do realize without the tech none of the stuff other people do day to day would happen right?
Who cares?
This site has only tech people ranting. One would think this is a software company. You realize that you are ancillary to the business?
@b4 not everywhere globally? Hahahaha
The Helpdesk is terrible, as is the Command Center and new Service Desk. With the first two, the Accenture people often forward lines to each other, and there is often no answer. Unless the now unemployed former staff specifically trained them and gave them step by step instructions how to do something they do not do it. After those teams various App Support personnel were fired after training their foreign replacements. Now it is the Networking, Global Desktop, and DBA teams that will be going to pot next. I do not know who has it worse - the outgoing people facing unemployment and repossession of their cars, or the people that remain who have to try and extract whatever assistance they can from these cheap body shop workers. This will work out as well as the Flex Desks, signage at Camden Yards, and not modernizing investment products. You get what you pay for.