Posting on Shell Blog by IT4me on Jun 11th, 2010 at 11:27 am
IT COST SAVING IDEA #317: STOP FIDDLING WITH THE SUPPLY SIDE.
If youre a CIO and youre bored, one of the things you might do is to fiddle with the supply side. Changing all your suppliers overnight makes a nice splash in the media and marks you out as a thrusting and dynamic leader.
Thus we learned a few years back that Shell IT now had just 4 Key Application Suppliers globally: IBM and WIPRO for the oily rag stuff (sourcing mainly from India) plus LOGICA and ACCENTURE to talk persuasively and rack up impressive dry-cleaning bills. They how I understood it, anyway.
This setup fits the CIOs vision of how the world should be, but its not how the world is. Most adventures in Matulaland run years late and some never work at all. In the meantime, legacy IT experts are needed to keep systems running and fix the damage done by unqualified (and constantly churning) offshored workers. Legacy IT experts are mostly locked into earlier supply arrangements reinvoicing agencies that operate on margins of just 3%, so couldnt be any cheaper.
How are these 2 worlds reconciled ? Easy ! The legacy agencies are forced to work through LOGICA or ACCENTURE to maintain the illusion of 4 suppliers. The policy makes these workers an eye-watering 30% MORE EXPENSIVE for no discernable gain, least of all in the dry-cleaning department. Its only transitional, you might argue, but some of these arrangements are now in their 3 year.
COST-SAVING is clearly a tricky business. With charades of this sort tolerated at boardroom level, what chance does Peter Voser have further down the tree ?
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
