BAT reviews

While the rest of the company manages its operations on a shoestring, the IT department still believes that "BAT has too much money"; that standpoint drives the whole department behaviour in terms of performance, culture and integrity. Regarding performance, the vast majority of IT projects fail miserably. When I was working in that department, the joke was that BAT were the world champions of failed SAP projects. The reason is, failure is not seen as an issue in that department, confidence and arrogance are valued much more than competence. And, of course, your ethnicity: woe be to those outside of "CANZUK" + (white) South Africa. As a result, the culture is based on blaming others for one's own failures, and hijacking your neighbour's successes. People at the top are low-level technicians whose only skill is to relish in abject subservience to their superiors, unable to see the big picture while convinced they are "leaders". Bullies flourish within BAT IT department, and attain the highest positions. And, as "BAT has too much money", the way vendors are selected and managed is particularly worrying. Again, they are not selected with the business' interests in mind. More expensive, less performing vendors are preferred over more efficient and cheaper ones, even when the choice implies a huge risk to operations. Or useless technologies are purchased to allow the IT "architects" to garner their resumes with that specific skill. Sometimes vendors are selected based on the "cultural fit", meaning the nationality of the vendor - pure Brexit style. If you have any principle or talent, avoid at all cost.

But is it too late? My fear is it’s too little, too late and BAT is destined to be the next Blockbuster or Kodak. There are still too many of the “old school”, not just pale, male and stale but, but people with inflated egos that have got away with doing very little, taking very little accountability and creating layers and layers of bureaucracy (dressed up as controls) so nothing ever changes.