QF BLOWS $200 MILLION ON Eq

[numbskull]

"Qantas has pulled the plug on an ambitious $200 million e-business outsourcing manoeuvre, axing a contract with IBM six years before the arrangement was due to expire." The Financial Review 31/01/2006

I found a report in the Australian Financial Review 31 Jan 06. I can't get the full story here but it is available on the QF intranet or from AFR.

Basically the Eq system is being axed and $200 million dollars has been wasted trying to get it to work.

Fiona Balfour who is the Chief Information Officer will be leaving in March. Probably because of her abject failure to get QF's computer systems into the 20th century.

We struggle to be able to access maintenance manuals and print them out on a daily basis yet her remuneration as stated in the 2005 annual report is listed as 107643 QAN shares and entitlements to a further 210000 shares under Qantas Long Term Executive Incentive Plan as well as remuneration of $1,220,746 for 2005 alone(p57 of 2005 annual report). Who knows what her seperation package will be!!!!!

It is utterly disgraceful that QF can be so penny pinching(sacking someone for stealing a packet of biscuits) and one of the most senior executives can leave QF with millions in her pocket after being such an abject failure. They are willing to sack 3000 maintenance workers for a saving of far less than they have just wasted here.

Surely Geoff Dixon and the board must take some responsibility. It will be hard to blame this on the unions!!! Edit: We know how emotive such topics can be, however it's no excuse for obscenities, masked or otherwise. You've been warned Woomera (Eastern States)

[QFinsider]

Whilst those with any moral fibre might consider this abhorrent, it is reality....
These bum wipes take no risk and get the reward...

Corporate malaise, call it corrupt but they do control corporations with their babble, crap and graphs...Couldn't believe the idiot who ran HP into the ground is doing the speaking circuit. What is she doing lecturing how to lose money?

It used to be that risk attached a premium..market theory or something like that. Risk attracted a premium. paying those a reward for taking/assuming the risk..Those taking the risk got the reward...

Miners
Pilots
Engineers
Astronauts
Crane Drivers

you get my picture....
Now accountants, lawyers and various "categories of administration" get the spoil.

Now some ta*t gets $1.2million for totally screwing the pooch. Amazing thing is her reference will enable her to join another of the suit brigade...

It made me sick, but you only need read a little military history to realise the blokes getting shot at didn't get the medals!
Personal integrity is very important it just doesn't pay

The founding fathers of the tail I fly would be weeping seeing the disgusting conduct of these leeches...

How do they sleep you say?

Silk sheets my boy:E

[Keg]

Ironic that this is announced the day that a truck load of qvpn tokens were due to expire and cause wholesale chaos amongst at least the pilot ranks!

To coin a phrase off Qrewroom:

Qantas IT. Yesterday's technology tomorrow.

:E

[wing surfer]

is it another case of legalished white collar crime or a case of them who has the money mkes the rules?

[Syd eng]

Does this mean Telstra is taking over the lot? It could get even worse!!!!

[lowerlobe]

As I have said before the QF motto is

"Yesterdays technology tomorro"

Eq was so user unfriendly that it made windows performance look brilliant

[Hercfix]

Here is the text of the original article.

Qantas has pulled the plug on an ambitious $200 million e-business outsourcing manoeuvre, axing a contract with IBM six years before the arrangement was due to expire.

Late last year the airline cancelled a contract with IBM to build and operate a company-wide information system known as EQ. The contract, signed in June 2002, was expected to run for 10 years.

Neither IBM nor Qantas would comment.

The original three-way arrangement with IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Oracle was lauded as a new "vision for the technology-based working environment at Qantas" when announced four years ago.

The plan was to build new human resources, payroll and financial systems based on Oracle software.

The original contract to build the systems was awarded to PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting and inherited by IBM when it acquired that consulting business. IBM was also expected to supply infrastructure and hosting services.

The e-enablement of administration, which was the key goal of EQ, was expected to save $25 million.

But little is left of the original plan. IBM is understood to have been contracted to provide some support services until later this year, but the attempt to shift the job of running the vital applications away from the airline has been abandoned.

The project is understood to have run into trouble early last year after the human resources element was completed. People close to the project say deadlines started to slip as attempts were made to map the new finance application against the complex Qantas corporate structure.

The cancellation of the contract is a major blow for IBM, which has been seeking to stress its service capabilities in recent years and to interest customers in handing over more of their operations.

However, the computer company retains its infrastructure outsourcing contract with Qantas.

That $650 million, 10-year contract to run the airline's data centre and computer server systems still has eight years to run. It was negotiated separately from the EQ project.

The EQ project has been closely monitored by other companies that need to replace legacy applications. The build-and-operate model adopted by Qantas was seen as an alternative to an in-house development.

According to the Qantas 2003 annual report, EQ was one element of a computer operations, network and telecom strategy designed to enable business change and simplify technology infrastructure by retiring high-cost components.

The airline also articulated its desire to outsource commodity services to managed service providers "where possible and practical".

The project was one of the initiatives unveiled by Fiona Balfour after she became chief information officer at Qantas. Late last year Ms Balfour announced she would leave the airline in March.

No replacement has been announced. Michael Mitchell, whose roles at Qantas have included chief IT architect and planner, is a strong internal candidate.

[lean6]

Telstra CEO announces new Chief Information Officer (CIO)


Telstra Chief Executive Officer, Sol Trujillo, today announced the appointment of Fiona Balfour as Telstra's Chief Information Officer (CIO), reporting directly to Chief Operations Officer, Greg Winn.

Ms Balfour joins Telstra in early April after 14 years with Qantas, the last five as Chief Information Officer. In her role as CIO at Qantas, she implemented an extensive program of replacing key legacy systems and introducing new infrastructure through a series of strategic outsourced relationships servicing Qantas's data centre, global and domestic network and desktop environments.

Ms Balfour will be responsible for leading Telstra's centralised IT organisation and core IT programs as well as overseeing the company's Operations Support System (OSS) and Business Support System (BSS) transformational programs over the next 3-5 years.

Ms Balfour has 26 years experience in business and technology. She commenced her career as a graduate recruit in the Victorian Public Service in 1980 before moving to the Commonwealth Government. Between 1985 and 1991 she worked in management consulting with WD Scott and the DMR Group.

Ms Balfour joined Qantas as an IT senior executive in 1992. She held a variety of portfolios before being appointed Chief Information Officer and a member of the Qantas Executive Committee in 2001. Her portfolio was expanded in 2004 with the creation of Qantas Business Services that delivered Information Technology, Procurement, Property, Transport and People services to the Group. Ms Balfour represented Qantas on the Supervisory and Full Boards of SITA SC (Geneva).

Ms Balfour holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Monash University (1979), a Graduate Diploma in Information Management from the University of New South Wales (1981) and a Master of Business Administration from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1987).

Mr Vish Padmanabhan has accepted the role of Deputy Chief Information Officer. He joined Telstra in 2004 and prior to this spent 20 years with IBM

[numbskull]

That article failed to say that "the strategic outsourced relationship" with IBM has been canned with eight years left to run at a cost of $200 Million dollars. QF has kept this very quiet but maybe someone should email Sol Trujillo.

Time to sell my Telstra shares if that clown is going to be looking after their computer systems.