#strategy

My team of registered field nurses has no work. Okay, we have some work but not very much, as in not enough to meet productivity. They hired new nurses last year just as things were slowing down. Now things are so bad- like the hunger games vying for appointments. Forget the bonus, it no longer exists. They are hiring yet again but we have no work! What the heck? What’s going on? My manager has no answer for lack of work, it’s almost like she is pretending the issue doesn’t exist. Any thoughts on what the strategy is here?

it's been a few months now. what is our grading of their performance?

i'll go first:
churn is the worst it has ever been (D-)
we haven't done anything to address our network strategy (D)
we moved data under a guy who knows nothing about data but is a friend (F)
we hired a manager to be svp of analytics, but at least they are friends with CTPO (C-)
we have no call center ops strategy (D-)
we've outsourced everything to hit an ebitda number, but now have no sustainability of ebitda (F)

overall grade... F

What if Marshall Field's had been retained ? There was so much good will that was accumulated. Since the conversion to Macy's, Chicago and mid-western stores are quite "different" to say the least. After pivoting, they discovered that there was a need for more localization but has it been enough. Look at what Marshall Field's used to be.

Why could they have not refreshed the stores and polished the legacy that was extraordinary. Maybe things were perfect....but wasn't there better possibilities for the future of the trajectory of the business and the long term viability all around ? T

These stores used to have restaurants, beauty salons, unique and curated assortments that were unique and exciting ! What do you think ?

Remember these guys? What a joke. These are what they claim they did below. I haven’t seen any of it. They just got in during low COVID stock price and then claim they were genius because stock price rose?

Action #1: Refresh the Board of Directors with energy experience.

Action #2: Impose greater long-term capital allocation discipline.

Action #3: Implement a strategic plan for long-term value creation.

Action #4: Align management compensation with value creation, not production growth.

How in the world could the BOD and leadership disrupt the entire transformation plan by letting DF leave and still think the plan can succeed? Asinine.

The Telecom Paradox
More Traffic. Same Revenue.

Telecom is working harder than ever.

Traffic is exploding.
AI, video, cloud, 5G, FWA, everything runs on our networks.

But revenue?

Flat.

We operate one of the most capital-intensive industries in the world on a model that rewards volume… but not value.

This isn’t temporary pressure. It’s structural imbalance.

The digital economy is expanding exponentially. Yet the infrastructure enabling it
captures a shrinking share of the value.

The Reality & Problem for Verizon:

It’s like claiming that LCD manufacturers should benefit from more pixels being displayed when users watch more video

Last time I checked they were making 3 billion in revenue, I think the goal is to shrink the total employee count to 7000.

Moving towards a sale!

anyone else feel the dread and insanity of changes after those february RIFs? centerwell and conviva clinical staff are hanging on by a thread. these poor patients!! all to give md bonuses for checking on at risk people. your average needs people good luck ..they dont bring bonus money to the non clinical strategy team who literally dont know roles or any in clinic processes. watch the train fully wreck next week. resignations pouring in.

Serious question .. what is the point of announcing layoffs being silent for months and tepeating this a few times a year so people are terrified all the time and productivity falls? I understand need to cut costs but the way we do it makes no sense

So who is the strategic fit with all the layoffs and shutdowns? Weatherford is strong on the books but they are not going to be able to sustain growth as they can't grow the market share against the SLB, Halliburton, or even Baker.

I would bet on Baker, as they seem to be cleaning their books of distractions and getting to the core. I'm not sure WFRD has much to offer them at this point, as they may have in the past, but still would seem the best option for them -- just come other areas that would need to be divested.

Why don't we include another brutal truth here?

Our costs are out of control and we are failing vs competition and our benchmark is BS.

Are we hearing the feedback from the broader organization?

TL;DR : Nike needs to make more desirable products again and get them in front of more people by focusing on a few big hits and not over-relying on its own stores.

Nike should prioritize restoring brand heat and product distinctiveness while rebalancing its channel mix. The shift toward direct to consumer has supported margins but reduced marketplace visibility. I would recommend sharper segmentation of distribution, reinvesting in key wholesale partners for reach, while elevating owned channels for premium storytelling and data. In parallel, focus the innovation pipeline on fewer, bigger product bets across core categories, reducing complexity and improving speed to market. Growth will come from concentrating demand around iconic, high velocity products rather than expanding assortment.

This likely requires a simpler operating model with clearer priorities and faster decision making. That includes reducing organizational complexity, aligning incentives around end to end category performance, and empowering teams closer to the consumer to act with speed. There is also an opportunity to improve demand forecasting, merchandising discipline, and supply chain responsiveness to increase precision without adding overhead. Cost discipline matters, but primarily as an enabler of speed, creativity, and execution rather than the goal itself.

Thoughts?

Citi is quietly doing layoffs without much noise like Amazon or Microsoft. They are not in news much.

The government must look into the fake internal job postings, promotions for favorite candidates, and immigration visa abuse. Citi is notorious for replacing American workers with H1B, L1 TN, OPT, H4 EAD candidates.

They hire in India, Ireland, Poland, Costa Rica Singapore, and their last option is hiring in the USA.

Most of the Indian managers are racists and they discriminate other south asians based on caste and culture. It's a absolute disgrace to the America.
Citi HR and Ethics teams are a joke!

They will hire overseas and make them rich and show layoffs in the USA to bump up the stock!

The only strategy is lay off people and get more bonuses! This cannot survive for long. It's a shame that the assets of the big four banks in the USA are not even comparable to some average banks in China.

All we do is new marketing brands

Great job Vz Board & Dan.

Great strategy... Great Execution.

Paying Dan $1M a month... do the right thing and resign.

Harvard Business Case already written howbto F-K up a once great company with DEI

Bank leaders are all in San Antonio this week for strategy sessions. Could be a good or bad thing…anyone have insights?

I’ve never seen a company that is so top heavy. And notice how every VP is always in the same meetings with other VPs. What decision autonomy you have when everyone is in everyone’s business always.

There are meetings in random cities all over the world that everyone flocks to. And these “strategy sessions” do not drive anything other than poor decisions which require future pivots (and more Strat sessions).

What is going on with Honeywell?

This is the reality.
NRE employees are not being targeted because they are lazy, noncompliant, or underperforming. That narrative is convenient, but it is not the truth.
They are being targeted because they are the most financially strategic group to remove.
Employees who are already retirement eligible have already earned their pension and benefits. If they leave, the company still carries those costs, including payouts, healthcare, and everything that comes with it. The liability is already locked in.
Younger employees? Many of them will be impacted anyway as AI and automation continue to evolve. They have not accumulated significant pension value yet, so the financial upside of removing them now is limited. They walk away with relatively small payouts, which would likely happen in the near future regardless.
But NRE employees are right at the threshold.
They are the ones about to qualify for meaningful pension payouts and lifetime medical benefits. That is where the financial exposure is. That is where the delta is. That is why they are being pushed out before they cross that line.
Not because they are all poor performers. Not because they are disengaged. Some are, some are not, but that is true of every group.
So let’s stop pretending this is about laziness or attitude. It is not.
It is timing. It is cost. It is strategy.
What is frustrating is not just the outcome, it is the narrative being used to justify it. Do not label people as lazy to explain decisions that are clearly driven by financial incentives.
People see what is happening.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/jim-cramer-nike-one-bigger-153440220.html

The most important thing is to collect and destroy all the green crayons, replace them with purple crayons, then sell the devalued purple crayons to a company who wants used crayons and doesn’t have better ones

What is the sense in celebrating 147 years of a defunct company’s “legacy” while replacing all your “legacy” offerings with purple lipstick and nothing new except worse problems?

5 words: Technical Vision, Get Some Fast.

Cisco is still milking the innovations of the 90s. Margins are shrinking, the market share is shrinking. What is left is espionage and up theft. It doesn’t go well for chucky boy.

Educated at Ivy League universities vs no-name college

Worked at prestigious organizations like Bain, Paypal, Service now vs Nike only experience ( that too which he got by literally begging for it)

$170 share price and $52 billion revenue vs comedy that we are seeing now

Has PHK made a mistake by replacing a highly educated, intelligent leader with Shoe salesman? The results are for everyone to see, even if JD continued I am sure that share prices wouldn't have dipped this low.

I am not saying JD would have been the best person to continue on the job, but he would be as aweful as EH. EH got free hand in literally replacing JD's handpicked team, and all the freedom to reshape company's strategy but the outcomes have been the worst.

What do you guys think, how much time does EH have before he is shown the door?

Long story short...I expect to be NSI this year. Can anyone share the blueprint for dragging this out as long as possible before I am severed?

What happened to the highly anticipated external hire from a consulting company who was appointed to head DMC strategy? She disappeared after just a few months. Was she that bad?

What changed over the last month or so? We were at $50! I was optimistic that Dan was turning around our firm post layoff and new strategy. Our net add and cash flow numbers were impressive and further OpEx reductions + stock buy backs + dividends was meant to turbo charge our stock to ~$72. What happened? What changed? Does the street know something that we don't?

Flight to saftey over. Vz stock resetting and back to low 40's/30's. Zero strategy execution exposed. Buyback and layoffs only strategy. Without Executive Leadership... BOD only option is merger and tap out with bonuses. Merge with Charter and let Nick Jefferies reset DEI hirings.

another "strategy team" pushing a not new approach and calling it new with long trainings where no one has done the job on the clinic level. exhausting....praying for rif or early retirement. why cant these over paid consultants figure stuff out? If it did not work the first time or second time... it wont work with less staff.

During Chambers' time, there was a very clear strategy and vision: to be number one or two in every product line that Cisco sells, combined with a vision to change the way we live, learn, and play. Today, there is no vision or strategy at Cisco. What is important is to maintain profit margins only. Over the past decade, Cisco has lost significant market share in every product line it sells, and in some of them it has long since ceased to be number one or two.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is undergoing a major operational restructuring. The company will eliminate hundreds of roles across its film, TV, and corporate divisions. These changes are described as strategic for growth, not primarily cost-driven. New focus areas include franchise strategy, anime, and video game adaptations. CEO Ravi Ahuja communicated these organizational shifts in a staff memo.

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/sony-entertainment-layoffs-tv-film-1236710554/

Sony Pictures Entertainment has begun layoffs across its motion picture, television, and corporate offices. This move is part of a strategic refocus on growth-oriented strategies. The company aims to strengthen differentiated businesses and ROI drivers. Growth areas include Crunchyroll, other anime, and PlayStation adaptations. Chairman and CEO Ravi Ahuja sent a memo to staff regarding these changes.

https://deadline.com/2026/04/sony-pictures-layoffs-refocus-on-growth-1236782963/

My former undergrad mate went to Wharton (MBA finance), entered the industry and was mentored by the likes of Dan Niles. His view on justifiable Head Count for Intel Inc.

Design team = 20,000
Manufacturing = 40,000
Total = 60,000

He called it out right. What do you think. Tag HR and the powers to be.

https://www.phonearena.com/news/at-t-has-big-plans-for-cricket-wireless-and-they-go-way-beyond-phones_id179442

Most decisions are focused on immediate results. Long-term impact doesn’t seem to ever be a priority. It leads to the same problems coming up again later and more wasted time and resources. Imagine how different things would be if we actually focused on the future and long-term results.

Here's the thing. Dell isn't going to suddenly start caring about you. Accept that. Then use it. They offer education benefits? Max them out. Training programs? Sign up for every one. Tuition reimbursement? Take every dollar. Upgrade your skills as much as you can on their dime. Take on responsibility, not because they'll reward you, but because it makes your resume stronger. Then you have two paths. Path one, you become so marketable that you can leave for a better job with better pay. Path two, you become so essential that they keep you when the cuts come. Either way, you're in control. Stop waiting for them to be good to you. Use them.

Unfortunately the news article is paywalled. But how exactly do they plan to double profits? More cutbacks?? Is this the part where private equity starts doing what they do best, cut everything down to nothing to maximize profits?? Here is the link to the article but sorry it's paywalled.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/walgreens-private-equity-owner-plans-to-double-chain-s-profits

In your view, what's the purpose of technology @ BD? It's a rhetorical question.

I think the market has this wrong, especially if they think this is in anyway tied to the company gaining some new foundry customer.

This appears to me to be a typical financial leveraging exercise, where they take on a lot of debt in order to own 100% of the revenue from lagging node production.

Seems like typical short-term Finance thinking to me, all well and good unless demand falls off a cliff when the megacap tech hyperscalers are forced to pull back sharply on capex.

Why would they do that? Because (unlike the AI disruption they all face) the other corporate users of AI are not ready to run off an adoption cliff.

Each and every one of the megacap tech companies are in an existential race, scrambling to replace a good deal of their existing products with datacenter revenues. Users are already shifting to use of AI in place of the key products offered by the megacap tech companies, so those companies are moving to AI as quickly as possible, before their entire business model is destroyed.

Oracle is a great example of what is happening, where they are slashing headcount at the same time as they are going all in on debt-fueled datacenter construction. Amazon appears to be at the other end of the spectrum and that is likely because they don't feel as at risk from AI. Microsoft, Google, Meta..soon to be disrupted.

So much manipulation by so many to create competitive moats, all for naught.

Other companies are also adopting, but not at such a furious pace, and so don't need the datacenter growth being offered by the megacap tech companies. At some point (very soon) there will be a reckoning, which results in datacenter capex being probably cut in half (more or less).

AI is still a thing, just not quite as fast as megacap tech companies need it to be.

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/ibm-announces-strategic-collaboration-arm-040100144.html

This is far more strategic than first appears as it gives Enterprise customers options while feeding IBM’s strategy of buying SW innovations.

1. It grows IBM’s Mainframe moat for the Fortune 500 - 1000 (expands the mainframe monopoly)
2. It opens up SW acquisition opportunities thus allowing IBM to expand its distribution model while also shrinking IBM’s legacy SW in house development model

And therein lies the problem