IBM to 'be gone' from AECOM by Spring, says insider

SLAs regularly missed, staff turnover high and the mood is depressing, an insider at engineering giant AECOM has claimed, as outsourcing woes continue

IBM will "be gone by Spring" from its $2.3bn outsourcing contract with engineering and construction firm AECOM, according to an inside source close to the deal.

The new source comes in the wake of many others, who have contacted Computing to describe a catalogue of failures and worsening morale.

"As of today I am being told IBM will be gone from AECOM by spring," the source said. "IBM continues to lose money every month due to not meeting contract needs," they added.

The insider, who until recently worked at AECOM in IT, said that they left after IBM brought in new staff who had been working on a different contract, most of whom had little IT experience, they claimed.

"This was an epic failure as most were clueless, and many left due to not knowing how to do their job. I still speak with many engineers who claim IT support has gotten much worse. No one knows how to fix anything," they added.

The source also said that service level agreements are regularly missed.

"IBM has SLAs that they do not meet daily. For instance they are supposed to complete a ticket within a certain time after it is submitted. Most of these are not met."

According to the insider, IBM also promised that the newly implemented Microsoft System Center (a data centre and IT management tool) would be able to take up some of the strain.

"It was supposed to handle the amount of users needing to install software, which IT teams couldn't do since they eliminated so many staff. But none of it works well."

The source continued: "They also promised to have upgrades for outdated hardware, but these promised go unmet due to lack of qualified staff.

"The helpdesk in India keeps people on the phone for an hour or two, but they never actually get anything accomplished and will come back after 20 minutes and ask who they are again and again.

"Then they will pass the buck to desktop support who is now overworked and underpaid. Most of the work they pass must be handled by third-line teams like server support. So after it gets bumped it they then have to wait for desktop support to get to it, then transfer it."

One of the issues is the huge staff turnover, with teams like desktop support "mostly replaced or cut", leaving very few staff with vital legacy knowledge left at the firm.

"In the US there are about 100 staff, but more than half that are new or contractors. I'd say about 70 per cent of third-line teams have been outsourced to India and Argentina. The US people try to keep up but they are truly overworked."

Another insider described the firm as a "sinking ship" last year, claiming that the environment requires skilled people, rather than the cheap labour it is hiring instead.

All of this has resulted in extremely low morale across the board, the source said.

"The mood at AECOM is overly depressing, all the way from IT to engineers. They also outsourced all facilities staff as well. This made no one happy.

"Engineers leave daily and get replaced or just plain cut. This type of staffing has everyone on edge always, since no one knows if they will have a job tomorrow.

"IBM staff have it worst as they never know if their hours will be cut (as they have done in the recent past) or if they will be just plain let go.

"If it weren't for a few remaining IT staff the place would fall apart as it is starting to."

Have you experienced this situation first hand? If so, drop us a line: [email protected]