IBM's Global Mentoring Program

Mentoring or training your offshore replacement?
IBM is shifting work offshore at a record pace.
Say goodbye to IBM US jobs.

This bit of PR is just a "cover" for people training their offshore replacements.

It's just a matter of time before the American worker loses his/her job to the cheaper worker in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia or elsewhere.

After the Mentoring is done your unemployeed

After the Mentoring is done your unemployeed

Take it from some one who is caught in the middle of this now.
We are training our offshore replacements.
This has caused nothing but a loss of core knowledge and a major increase of responce times.
IBM may be making a smarter planet by offshoring the knowledge to other countries but they are only hurting the companies they are suppose to be supporting.

Wake up IBM your degrading your reputation to protect your short term bottom line.

Mentoring? Pah! It's the (soon to be ex) wife teaching hubby's hot new girlfriend how to cook his dinner.

Why do people fall for this? It's like lambs to the slaughter.

Well, that's an interesting article. Ask most IBMers what is really happening--they're training their replacements. How do I know--because I did it myself!

Well, that's an interesting article. Ask most IBMers what is really happening--they're training their replacements. How do I know--because I did it myself!

Well, that's an interesting article. Ask most IBMers what is really happening--they're training their replacements. How do I know--because I did it myself!

Although the global recession seems to give reason to despair all the more over "offshore outsourcing", I think there is a "glimmer of hope" in global mentoring. Having worked, lived and studied in Brazil for 15 years before coming back to the US to work, I have seen the talent that multinationals and national companies such as IBM have acquired. There is a very real opportunity for bi-lateral exchange of knowledge and business.
I was also intrigued or enthused by Mr Lin's imparting of advice on how to do business in China. Granted, not everyone has the chance to be bi-cultural, living in two different countries, as Mr Chen and I have. Still I hope that this will become more and more the norm in today's "global village".

This is all about spin. IBM doesn't care about mentoring. It's all about Global Resourcing US working. They are tasked to get rid of highly paid US professionals and send those jobs to other countries like Argentina, Brazil, India, et al. Just ask Joanne Collins-Smee...she's the driving force behind the GR movements.

This is all about spin. IBM doesn't care about mentoring. It's all about Global Resourcing US workers. They are tasked to get rid of highly paid US professionals and send those jobs to other countries like Argentina, Brazil, India, et al. Just ask Joanne Collins-Smee...she's the driving force behind the GR movements.

How innocent & positive mentoring sounds. Providing expertise that's not currently available offshore, makes it sounds so ... hmm.. realistic. I'm tired of hearing how IBM & other companies are off-shoring because they want to take advantage of cheap off-shore talent. They just want the cheap. The talent is still mostly in the US and Europe. The cheap is in India, Brazil, China, South Africa, etc.

This story is a paid endorsement for IBM. IBM really uses employees to transfer knowledge to developing countries and then severs the US employee. What a joke of a story BusinessWeek!

The example cited in the article is probably in the minority of cases where there are benefits both in the US and abroad. When you actually work within the company, you hear of far more stories of US employees training others who are overseas, only to be eventually laid-off via the process of a bad evaluation.

What a joke! I was told in Feb. that the job I have been doing above and beyond (with 20% unpaid forced OT so they can charge the customer) for the past 24 years is being gr'ed (global resourced). It all has to do with getting cheaper resources. IBM doesn't care about experience, respect for the individual, or customer satisfaction.

This is just IBM spin masters at work again. Global Mentoring Program = Train your replacement in a lower labor market so we can let you go and improve our bottom line.

It is below BusinessWeek's to fall for this hog wash without doing it's due diligence to find out what is really going on.

Let's see if Danny Chen still has a job in a year. Or maybe he will - back in Taiwan! See Project Match

IBM NEEDS TO SHUT DOWN, IT HAS BECOME AN ANTI AMERICAN COMPANY. IT STEALS THE FOOD FROM OUR CHILDREN AND FEEDS OTHERS FOR BUSINESS PROFITS. IT HAS LAID OFF TOO MANY AMERICAN CITIZEN JOBS IN AMERICA AND HIRED OR CREATED 1000'S OF JOBS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. THEN WHY DO WE NEED THIS COMPANY IN AMERICA ANY MORE.

Does seem that IBM's not internally trusted, doesn't it?

The author of the article completely missed the point of several issues, which indicates he either didn't do his homework or is a paid shill for Big Blue. Apart from ignoring or being unaware of IBM's demeaning requirement that offshore replacements must be trained before the original job-holder is laid off, there's a drastic shift in IBM's patenting policy itself. Having led industry in patent leadership for the past fifteen years, and having enough applications filed in the 2009 pipeline, IBM has cut the projected number of invention disclosures to file by 70%, and redefining success in patent leadership to filing a much smaller number of higher quality patents. It's all to save money on application fees, lawyers, and employee awards in an area which was very recently a high priority of IBM's - no more, though. Innovation is fine, unless it costs, then it gets cut, even though it brings in over a billion dollars a year. So reporting on a heart-tugging story about a two-man collaboration raising a team's patent output from 1 to 5 doesn't make any sense when IBM is taking measures to reduce its yearly patent output from 4,000 to 1,200.

American companies are getting fooled too. Ask any one of them if their outsourcing costs have gone DOWN since their contract services have moved offshore using cheap labor. Nope. They are still charged the same as if outsourcing done onshore by Americans. Guess who benefits.

I think we have to understand here is ..why are the jobs going to offshore?? We all claim they are cheap labor ..but are we so cheap that we can be so easily replaced by cheap Indian labor? If that is the case ..then something is wrong within us.

At least people in other countries write better english than "your unemployeed".
A lot of people in the US cannot even write good english, so quit whining !

At least people in other countries write better english than "your unemployeed".
A lot of people in the US cannot even write good english, so quit whining !

The numbers "ibm inventor" posted can't possibly be right. Ibm doesn't even set those kinds of targets. once a patent is filed, there's no control over if/when a patent is issued. Due to the recession there's a lot of cutbacks but a intentional 70% reduction of patents ain't gonna happen. Put up or shut up.

Let's look at it this way....

Overpriced IBMers in the US are training their rightpriced counterparts in India.

BTW, IBM India has 90,000 headcount (25% of entire IBM headcount). IBM Brazil, China and Russia together have just 30,000. It might as well be Indian Business Machines!

IBM is a business (not a charity). They will do what brings them money. A lot people think this is a wrong decision. But in business there is nothing right or wrong. It is just appropriate and inappropriate. What IBM is doing is appropriate. They are not upping their headcount, they are also investing in a future market. This is called creative destruction. It is going to hurt some people. To say, Indian IBMers are cheap is foolish. It is the US IBMers who are overpriced. Get yourselves out of this state of denial. Remember "who moved my cheese?"

Hey I actually know Danny Chen, he is a very good friend of mine here in Austin. He is a very bright and talented guy. Everyone on here seem to be against training others due to fear of being replaced. I really don't think IBM will replace a talented individual like Danny. I will ask him how he feels about this subject.

It almost seems as if Americans are very paranoid a group of people.

Having worked in IBM in South East Asia myself, Global Mentoring on paper is a good idea. IBM is such a big and complex company, half the battle of surviving or to do well in the company is to understand how to work within IBM, and often that includes understanding how to work with the processes that involves different offices across the globe. Some things in South East Asia can't be accomplished without kicking somebody's behind in the US. And you need to know how to kick across borders to do that.

IBM can be in fact very local and each country has their geographical and cultural constraints that makes some things hard to be transferred offshore.

Rather than wasting time complaining against how people aren't protecting you, it would be better to make sure you are good in what you do that no one can ever replace you.

Mentoring foreigners is certainly a very bad idea and a bad deal for the US workers. The general idea for IBM is to reduce cost and maximize profit. This mentoring program will certainly allow IBM to achieve those. Thanks IBM for ruining the US workers' life.

Mentoring foreigners is certainly a very bad idea and a bad deal for the US workers. The general idea for IBM is to reduce cost and maximize profit. This mentoring program will certainly allow IBM to achieve those. Thanks IBM for ruining the US workers' life. IBM is now officially stands for I've Been Moved.

Put up or shut up? Looks like I'm going to shut up. The numbers aren't based on anything IBM has announced (they wouldn't make such an announcement anyway) but rather on rumors from late last year. The rumors are generally but not nearly 100% accurate, but they're still just rumors. Also it's true, IBM has no control over the number of patents issued each year by the USPTO due to the backlog and decision on individual quality of the patents, so IBM can't really control a decrease in patents issued - the "4,000 to 1,200" doesn't make any sense. So I'll retract my claim. Still, the problem exists with American IBM employees training their offshore replacements ahead of stealth layoffs.

As a former co-worker of Danny Chen I have to disagree with the negative comments regarding off-shoring his replacement. Danny is the first to do anything for the team with a we first attitude leading to everybody's success. This generous type of person is exactly what not only the US economy needs to turn around but also the global market as well.

While globalization may be hard to come to terms with as long as you can change with the times you have no fear of finding work. The type of work may change as each country does what it's best at but in the end it's better for everybody. With the global collaboration, not replacement, we can get things done faster and cheaper. What types of jobs will the future hold for US, that's everybody's guess but the trend is moving more towards design here and implementation elsewhere.

A lot of the posters here miss the point. Any company that operates globally needs employees who can operate effectively cross borders. And to stay relevant the US based employee must develop the skills to work across cultures.The mentoring program (which I can't directly speak to) sounds like it helps bridge that gap. Employees who don't have the opportunity to actually work in another country can still learn how to communicate with and the priorities of another country.

Newbie and Abc make good points. We should be worried that American workers can be replaced so easily. It isn't just cost - a lot of it is education and technical skills. Also, IBM and other companies are just doing what is needed to survive. They are investing in growth markets because that is where their future revenues will come from.

Joanne - You use the term "foreigners" like it is a dirty word. You'd probably benefit from some global mentoring.

It should be called:
"IBM's Dig Your Own Grave Program"

Haha I can't believe people are falling for this. IBM has stopped caring about it's employees a long time ago. Our team was just cut in half after training our Indian counterparts.

read comments by current and ex IBMers from this website for the truth:

http://endicottalliance.org/jobcutstatusandcomments.php

Don't worry folks. If you're not affected by GR, there's always GDF. So whose moving to Fishkill, Boulder or Dubuque?

I heard that an email has been sent to IBM employees that require them to train their replacements. Would somebody please send me a copy of the email or anything else you might have to prove this?

I will honor your privacy and confidentiality.

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It is good for american consumer if all the goods are made in cheap china and services are provided by inexpensive indians they get to keep more of there hard earned money - oops do they earn anything or get money from govt who borrows from china? Why does Us borrow anyway just print some more money - dollar will crash and jobs will flow right back to US. Uh that is what Obama admin is doing now I get it.

I had fun training my H-1B replacement! As he was as clueless about my Job as management I made his training a joke. I also left him with a list of passwords for the routers and servers that had been changed weeks before!

I think management must think us engineers are as dumb as they are!

hey, u americans... if u can make profit for the company in US then they will not cut your jobs there! stop blaming the co. Start to looking at yourself!

All BusinessWeek and Steve Hamm ever does is kiss IBM's feet - search the archives and you will not find any negative press, so why expect the truth here? Just move on to more honest media outlets and you'll see what's really going on at IBM.