Some more interesting articles about Q's axing fo staff, this one talks about skilled IT staff probably too sacred to bits now as they have to re apply for new positions and justify their skills and if do not have the skills, will have to be shown the door, accordingly, Blackberry was a dismal failure. All that money spent: for nothing! And Telstra lost its contract with Q. These articles give you a perspective of what other work groups in Q is facing, we have been very centric in the company as a whole, the company does not revolve around cabin services only. There are many important departments such as IT. Any large company will fall apart without an efficient IT department, but can still operate for a long time with 2nd rate customer services.
Jobs at risk as Qantas centralises tech management
Mahesh Sharma | April 21, 2009
QANTAS'S technology department will get a further shake-up and may suffer more redundancies as a new operating model is adopted within months.
It has also scrapped its BlackBerry project, which was intended to improve inflight customer service.
It is understood the new structure -- to operate from June -- will integrate all employees across the technology business units into a single resource pool.
Staff will work across a range of technology projects overseen by multiple managers.
The technology revamp comes as the airline prepares to dump Telstra as the supplier of a $750million outsourcing contract as part of a squeeze on suppliers to cut costs.
Sources said the overhaul, which had been in the works since the middle of last year, would make it easier for Qantas to axe staff.
A recent cull of 90 managers by chief executive Alan Joyce claimed chief information officer Jamila Gordon and several other technology executives.
Qantas also flagged 1750 job cuts -- on top of 1500 shed last year -- and forecast that last year's profit before tax of $500 million would be down by as much as 80 per cent this year.
The most recent job losses include 500 management positions and 1250 full-time positions, which will mainly be operational staff based in Australia.
It is understood the technology shake-up was led by Qantas program delivery general manager Mark Eeles -- a former delivery head at Vodafone Australia -- who joined the airline in the middle of last year.
Sources said Mr Eeles and several other technology executives presented the new structure in a "lecture" last month at Qantas's new $10 million customer service centre of excellence in Sydney.
The national carrier has attempted to keep the new operating model under wraps as the information was not delivered over email.
Staff have been asked to list their skills and the new model will cut all previous roles to two work types -- project managers and business analysts.
Managers will oversee teams of about seven people and be responsible for everything from an employee's holidays to their career path.
Insiders said, however, the changes were simply reverting to an IT operating environment that was previously dumped by Qantas.
"This was the model Qantas had previously, before they changed it to the one they have now," a source said. "Now they're going back to what it was before. How does that work?"
Another source said the new structure was designed to "get rid of people that don't fit the new model" and management would have problems co-ordinating staff working across multiple projects.
"In this model the other people assigned to the same project as you could all have different managers and each manager could possibly give you holidays at the same time as everyone else," the source said.
"Your time will be used between projects. You have to verify which deadline is the most important to meet.
"If you go to your manager and tell them you have two deadlines colliding they would have to go to meetings and sort it out, which would mean you still have to decide yourself. Crazy."
A Qantas spokeswoman declined to comment on whether a new technology operating model was being adopted.
"Qantas has recently announced that some parts of the business will be impacted by staff restructuring as part of an overall review of our business segments, this includes the information technology operation," the spokeswoman said.
"Qantas is always monitoring its business practices for maximum efficiency and customer satisfaction."
Mr Joyce said efforts to rein in Qantas IT costs were well advanced.
Asked on ABC's Inside Business program to comment on Qantas technology systems being a "bit of a joke in the industry", Mr Joyce said: "We spend a lot on IT ... we spend around 3.5per cent of our revenue on IT."
Jetstar spent less than 1 per cent of its revenue on IT, probably because it had better systems because they were designed for a start-up carrier, he said.
"We're looking at getting better value for money, investing in the right areas, building up state-of-the-art systems that deliver really good productivity -- process efficiencies that really enhance the quality of the business," Mr Joyce said.
Meanwhile, data transmission problems and occupational health and safety hazards have forced Qantas to suspend the roll-out of BlackBerry devices to staff almost a year after the project kicked off.
It is understood the airline recently put the brakes on the BlackBerry exercise and will review the technology, which could result in the replacement of thousands of BlackBerry devices distributed across the business.
Customer service managers were to use the BlackBerrys to transfer information during airline procedures.
The national carrier is scrutinising all technology contracts and projects in a bid to cut costs and bunker down amid the financial crisis and economic downturn, which has severely hit the global airline industry.
The BlackBerry rollout was driven by former chief information officer Jamila Gordon, who was axed as part of the management cull.
The latest suspension draws the curtains on a project that was troubled from the beginning, according to staff.
Sources said it took up to 45 minutes to send a single document.
"There are 10 to 12 documents to send during each flight and it was almost impossible to send them," staff said.
Qantas encountered another hurdle after the project was approved, when the occupational health and safety department declared the devices were a potential safety hazard because of the amount of typing required on the BlackBerry's small keyboards.
The airline was forced to buy hundreds of additional keyboards that staff could plug in to the BlackBerry and use to type in the required information.
Qantas declined to confirm the project had been suspended.
Airline to cut $750m Telstra desktop deal
Mahesh Sharma | April 21, 2009
QANTAS is planning to cut its seven-year, $750 million Telstra desktop services outsourcing contract.
The contract is among the airline's largest and longest running technology deals as it starts to squeeze suppliers in a bid to slash costs.
It is understood Qantas has selected Japanese outsourcer Fujitsu to replace Telstra from June as its provider of domestic data, voice and desktop services.
The value and scope of the new contract have not been revealed.
The change is part of a cost-cutting push at the national carrier, which is fighting the dual pressures of the financial crisis and the global airline industry downturn. Qantas has forecasted full-year profit before tax of $500 million for 2008-09.
Instead, the airline will deliver a profit before tax of $100 million to $200 million.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce also announced widespread restructuring of the airline to cope with the downturn, with plans to axe up to 1750 more jobs, ground 10 planes and delay delivery of the next generation of jets.
Last month Qantas chief information officer Jamila Gordon and a number of key technology executives were made redundant as Mr Joyce culled 90 management staff from the airline. Ms Gordon left Qantas about two weeks ago and her responsibilities have been absorbed by corporate services and technology executive manager David Hall, previously finance chief at Jetstar.
Mr Joyce is scrutinising the long list of Qantas technology and outsourcing deals, of which the massive Telstra contract was the No 1 priority.
It is also looking at a 10-year, $650 million data centre outsourcing deal signed with IBM in 2004. Qantas moves to dump Telstra were flagged by The Australian last week but the airline has not revealed details of Fujitsu's role.
It is unclear whether Qantas will be penalised for ending the Telstra contract prematurely. It was due to expire in two years.
A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline planned on making an announcement about the Telstra deal in the middle of this year.
Qantas had previously said it would make an announcement on "the result of our desktop request for proposal process prior to the half financial year", and it was still expecting to do that, she said.
Fujitsu's expected appointment ends a relationship that has troubled Qantas staff for years and is understood to have once resulted in the airline's engineering business buying keyboards from Harvey Norman because Telstra's rates were too expensive. It is believed that in 2007 Qantas Engineering wanted to purchase several hundred keyboards, but under the Telstra contract they would have cost $180 a month.
After months of to-ing and fro-ing Qantas Technology approved a business case to purchase the keyboards from Harvey Norman because they could be categorised as a commodity.
It was a simple common-sense use of funds, an informed source said.
Qantas market testing of the Telstra contract late last year showed the telco's rates were several times higher than competitors were charging.