TDC is an annuity business and it always has been. Nothing they have tried to acquire or start outside the core database and ecosystem and surrounding services has EVER worked. Best advice is to stop wasting money on that stuff and just trust your directors and below. Eliminate all positions VP, SVP, etc. They serve no purpose. The directors and below aren't doing their bidding anyway because the VP and SVP, largely hired by OR for his own purposes, do nothing and know nothing. No one listens to them. They do not understand the business. They run around generating fake action items and actually are a drag on the real organization at director and below. VL, RP - if you are listening - fire all the SVP and VP. They are useless and worse they are a waste of money and a drag on productivity. Also, you can fire all those fake product managers that OR hired. No one is listening to them either. And start Partners back up. When you have a decades long brand CUSTOMER conference that is successful, you don't drop it. Go back to basics and eliminate everyone who is not doing basics. You can easily cut the R&D budget in half, maybe more.
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Mid Execs: $280k base, $140k bonus (can multiply), $315k worth RSU - standard vesting schedule. Moving costs+.
With great responsibility comes great power.
Somebody asked about compensation for C-Band Managers, I was one of those. I was paid $120K base with a bonus potential of 20% which could double to 40% if all the planets aligned. No stock options. I was in CS. Not the highest paid division of the company. I thought I was doing pretty good until I learned my local neighborhood non-union Fireman was making $161K working only four days a week. And he never had to travel to get screamed at by customers frustrated over the quality of the product or a Change Control that went South.
I am shell shocked to see couple of Core Database architects getting fired. The morale in the core Database Engineering is very bleak. No new enhancements or features approved for development. All customer wanted features are ignored by PM! Architects literally have to fight to get any new customer focused features shipped into Database. OR seeded the idea that the Database is matured and no more enhancements needed! What a visionary thought. If you stop innovating a product that drove the business, that is the first stepping stone to failure. As someone mentioned earlier when OR took the R&D role there began the decline for the company! OR k–led a feature in favor of listener, where is listener making money? And again this analytics functions running outside of Database causing huge latency with many moving parts. Don’t take me wrong on using Kubernetes containers. I love the idea of its self containment, but that’s to solve different problem! To do analytical functions data has to be closer to the powerful massive parallel computing units inside core Database! No one is here to listen because who ever signed up with that notion Kubernetes is going to solve the problem and convinced the C class executives think they were geniuses! But only to prove that idea is not come to fruition. Wrong bets at wrong time! Moonshots have to be experimented but that can’t be at the expense of customer wanting features. We can do those in a small scale to a level we could afford meaningfully. Not in the name of transformation and k–l the core Database which was built with love and care all these 40 years! If anyone in the board members reading this and still believe in the core database that powers Apple, Walmart, Target, Boeing, ANZ, BOFA, WellsFargo, et al Fortune 500, please revive the strength of this company by directing leadership to look down their org and listen to them. Otherwise Teradata is on sale with no core talent left, sell it for goodwill and the core patents the company holds!
As expected majority of the layoff's have been the hard working people and not the id**ts in the C suite or the EVP's and VP's who collectively have destroyed this company.
When will we start laying off the top level? Except for couple of execs I haven't seen useless VP/SVP/CEO being let go. It is time someone wrote to SEC to investigate the accounting practices of OR and VL. When we investigate these clowns that's when we will see the truth come out. Bringing BAIN to fix the problem was the first mistake and the second one was making VL the CEO of a technology company that deserved much better leadership and vision. We have blind leading the deaf in this company. Not sure how long we can survive but it is time to fire the top executives in this company instead of letting go dedicated employees.
Totally agree with the last post. Teradata lost its way. The company got s—ered by consultants who sold a bag of BS to over-their-head c-levels, appealing to their frail egos and insecurities, that Teradata’s fundmental problem was branding. It wasn’t. And then marches in ME and his witchcraft, a so-called new HR, and a manufacturing process guru who will make all well. Problem was it was all smoke and mirrors, and most employees knew it. The chickens are now home to roost. Sure, OL gets paid out well, Grandpa rakes in mega bucks, and the insiders take care of each other. And Rome burns to the ground. When the Peter Principle lives at an organization’s most senior levels this is what you get. - ASHES!!!! And these people can make all the money in the world but their legacy is DUST.
I completely agree. Teradata should have been taken private again several years ago as a cash cow business. The pressure from Wall Street pushed management to seek growth beyond the core database and every "visionary" pursuit was an utter failure. All acquisitions failed. The new management since VL and OR hasn't produced one new successful product, just a lot of branding and marketing to cover up failed technologies underneath and overall degraded product quality. There are so many employees on the payroll who are totally useless, who add zero value to the customer and the business. This should be a Harvard Case Study of management failure. Will the board wake up? Will Wall Street wake up and stop believing the "visionary" nonsense. It's not simply an execution failure.
Agree, I left TD due to same frustration. Oliver hired all his friends from EBay to boost his ego and Reema hired her friends from GE and other place to boost her ego. Anyone who s—ed up to her, is made a Director.
The board is part of the problem. Remember, they were responsible for bringing VL on board in the first place. That was a turning point and the beginning of the end. I was a loyal TD employee from 2001-2018 and was brought in by Vic to join the initial Bain consulting sh*t show, watching 20-something MBA grads run their spreadsheets professing how TD needed to transform. Managed by pivot tables and a washed up retail grocer exec who was purely operational focused (and ignorant in all things relating to technology relevance), proved to be a prophetic path to the end. That string quartet is playing, my friends. It's now beyond rearranging deck chairs.
Yes. Very much true. Many of them are doing nothing. Time to find them out and sack asap.
how much an average 2nd level makes? total comp?
https://twitter.com/TheLayoff/status/1194656130355662848
HR is useless ... Social media is the platform for change. If there is a way we can inform SEC - that would be more useful that writing to the spineless HR.
Actually, I'd add most director levels to that analysis.
OR hired lot of his friends from Ebay and Sears to boost his ego. I agree none of the VP or SVP server a purpose. Firing experienced employees is a failed strategy. The day OR was given the R&D position was the end of Teradata. Bring back Technically savvy engineers into leadership position to save the company. If the board is reading any of this posts they should fire the entire leadership and bring someone young and talented to save the company. VL must go and all the top leadership in sales/PS should be asked to hand in their resignations. In fact I suggest all the employees sending emails to HR and the entire board to fire the current leadership today.
I can suggest 10 top names in the company who are worthless today. I am sure others can come up with more names if required.
Absolutely well laid out post. Agree with all your points - Teradata is an annuity business. Only addition to your post is that Vic and Reema need to go or be fired. Long overdue.
So true and on point. Teradata went from having a small management team to a top heavy machine. They could easily make the cuts Warren mentions and no one would even notice. Get rid of the usless layers of management.