It is not unexpected to get a meeting invite from a VP to discuss cost cutting in this economic condition.
What was unexpected was, why again ? why now ? Did not we have this just a few weeks ago and before that one more time few more weeks ago ?
Cost cutting comes down to cutting working population of a company. Reducing investment in products that market is not ready to buy in next 2-3 years.
Now, what in my opinion we have got completely wrong this time is, we cancelled a few products that were ready to develop and ship but exepenses to put them in production line got constrained. But when it comes to people, we did not cut DEEP and cut ONCE. We let few people go in Oct, few again in Feb and doing the
cost cutting meeting again in March first week now with a target percentage cut in working population across the globe.
There is yet another target to meet, and that does not look BIG or something that will suffice going through the recession.
A slow and continuous cutting, it very demoralizing for people who come to work everyday. Doing one once deep, and with compassion, is better. People who are left behind know that they will hang around and focus. Now they are not sure. They just feel lucky that they went by a month. Not the recession.
When products could be shelved swiftly, and not the people, extra people hang around the company. They are not all optimally busy. And from this excess mass, slowly every month letting small amounts go, spreads the poison to rest.
So, while we are trying to save the penny from minor cuts here and there, the big dollars riding on motivation and focus are slipping away !
We were much wiser in the last recession.. were not we ?
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