Thread regarding CGG Veritas layoffs

CGG and Veritas was never a merger. CGG BOUGHT Veritas because Veritas was cash rich, although on a small scale, and because Veritas had a respectable share of the GoM market.

How Veritas became cash rich (for its size) was of no consequence to CGG.

Those who don't know about Dave Robson should read this:

http://library.seg.org/doi/abs/10.1190/1.1438727?journalCode=leedff

D. Proubasta (2000). ”Interview with Dave Robson, chairman and founder of Veritas DGC.” The Leading Edge, 19(8), 856-859

Management wise, whilst the comment below may read harsh, this strong decisive leadership might have been one option that might have helped the company to be in a stronger position to survive today's downturn...

CGG should have fired all the incompotent Digicon's and Veritas' whinning 10 years ago.

On deeper consideration, the statement also clearly highlights why this good idea needed to be enacted in the opposite direction, i.e. to the ex CGG managers and not the Ex Veritas managers. Pay attention future investors what conditions you may want to consider requesting (who do you want to keep) as part of the company restructuring.

The statement suggest this individual (we will assume by the comment context, CGG or Ex CGG manager) needs assistance with:

• Spellings (errors are observed twice on key words).

• Using constructive comments to validate a point in preference to defamatory.

• Written communication skills, including grammar and improved sentence construction.

On the positive side, as the company processes considerable quantities of numerical data, we can at least confirm a correct count of 10 years (2017 - 2007).

CGG should have fired all the incompotent Digicon's and Veritas' whinning 10 years ago.

After the CGG Veritas merger the workforce and management were pulling in different directions for years. Then between managers, Ex CGG and Ex Veritas Managers have been and are still infighting, they became very protectionist about there work and built up their domains of people to protect their dream. The highest level managers were so incompetent they either could not see it happening or just let it happen.

For us geophysicsists, depending on whose patch we were on the rules changed dramatically,

ex veritas => work in your team, pick up the phone and get help, talk to people. Even the very highest managers were available and keen to help you.

ex cgg => solve it yourself, communications followed management structure, only talk to the person above, the chinese whispers reach the person you need to talk to, then wait for the reply to work its way back

Both methods were successful when the companies were independent as everyone knew what was expected of them and how communications were managed. The merger created this very incompatible environment which is very depressing for the geo workforce to work with.

Digicon and Veritas was a good merger. We worked together and built a good company.

Veritas and CGG was a disaster of a merger. All the good people left, or made redundant.

I know if I was a client of CGG, I'd be looking for another siesmic provider. I wouldn't risk giving my money to CGG.

Good post.

Casting minds back to 1996, Veritas had cash, a good presence in the Canadian Foothills and an HQ in Calgary, Digicon needed cash and had boats and worldwide processing expertise - virtually no overlap and the merger was almost pain-free (in the UK at least).

Compare and contrast with CGG-Veritas. You could see it coming a mile off in 2007 - a slow-motion car crash, but I always thought the profitable Veritas core would survive......it almost did.

Thanks, OP, I agree with this part particularly:

CGG will probably shrink back to what it always was