Does anyone of us who really has insight of what's happening know the reasons behind? We're all angry, sad, nervous, but...why is it happening?
If profit may be the final reasons, what is that really drives it in this way?
I dont't believe it's only a matter of saving in fix costs...
13 replies (most recent on top)
Its always about money. Welcome to the real...
The person who wrote about SAP is right on—the program is a humongous drain on the company and is unlikely to have any substantive return on investment—and it looks like they’re going to drink that sunk cost KoolAid til the golden parachutes deploy and the rest of us get pushed out of the plane na--d. Those of you who got packages, rejoice!
The path Cargill is on started when Page started bringing in consultants and began the SAP implementation 2010. The whole company was supposed to be fully on SAP by 2016. DMAC double downed and brought in more consultants and Sikes did too. Meanwhile the SAP implementation dragged on and coat overruns mounted. By June 2024, only 58% of the company is on SAP. The 6 or so year implementation to 100% will at this rate take 22 to 25 years.
Management allows external consultants make the decisions. Also consider that for the first 130 years, cargill had 5 CEO's and all were family. In the past 30 years cargill had 5 CEO's that were not family. So like public companies, the family allowed external managers run the business to line their own pockets with no vested interest.
Will there be more such rounds?
Tge original news was for 20000 layoffs
Unattainable and uninformed targets were made for the businesses. Whether it was intentional or not, Brian or FP&A are using this to streamline the organization. The family could make better money on Treasury bonds and that's a problem.
IMHO - The Cargill family is NOT involved in the business, which is half the problem. They are purely stockholders. That means they look at our ROI vs publically traded stocks and are sadly disppointed. Cargill has never been a great ROI company averaging somewhere below 8% consistently. If you are publicly traded and are making less then 10% - 14% heads roll and layoffs are frequent. (S&P average return in the last 10yrs was 13% - Investopedia) .As an investor, I am looking at my returns and changing my investments to high performers. Cargill Family is saying the same thing to the corp; either make better ROI or heads will roll. So a huge adjustment was made. No one likes this. I was retained and I don't like this, but the fact is Cargill is now the largestly privately own "publicly" ran company in the US. (outside in strategy) We can all yell greed, but at the end of the day the family is wanting a return on their investment just like we do.
My opinion -- 2 reasons. Shareholders are transitioning wealth as they age and those that inherit the wealth are getting more involved. They do not have the same goals for Cargill and are putting unrealistic pressure on Sikes. The second reason is the new ELT is under qualified for the role they need to play in a company the size of Cargill. We don't have true leaders here anymore. We have glorified managers who carry a bigger title and think the key to fixing things is micro-managing everything. It is why nothing is getting done lately...no delegation. If you look at someone like Hartsock and her Baker Hughes entourage... they are playing preschool games with IT. It has been a joke watching her and her LT try to drive digital transformation the last couple of years. I know of many who tried to volunteer and help but new leadership from external refuse to involve them. So now it is the daily sh-tshow watching them fail over and over while all sit with our popcorn!
Family needs money
My whole group had a meeting today and it seems as though we were just simply numbers. The positions were picked by someone else.
Kathy needs a new McLaren.
Reason is money money money , more Maserati cars for Katie Cargill and they do not give a sh-t about people … at ALL
It’s definitely not over. The changes, productivity and effectiveness of the company will be impacted for many months to come as this re-org continues.
No idea about the reasons but I feel there is something else and that it's not over