Who's A Cash Cow? More Layoffs At LifeScan

Can you spell C-A-S-H C-O-W?  J&J spells it L-I-F-E-S-C-A-N.

I had covered LifeScan's last layoffs in October.  Seems there was more to come. 

Another 10% of the company, specially in the US division in Milpitas, is being shown the exit door, including the entire Business Development department.

LifeScan is doing well compared to the rest of the Blood Glucose Meters companies, specially in the US.  They are a $2 Billion company with manufacturing and operations in Milpitas (California),  Inverness (Scotland - at the tip of Loch Ness),  Mayaguez (Puerto Rico), and marketing and sales arms around the world.  And now, they are considered ripe for rationalization.

This makes sense, if you think of LifeScan as a cash cow.  J&J can continue to reap the profits from R&D mostly done 5 - 10 years earlier  (not talking about incremental changes to the product, of course),  as well as Business Development deals put in place as early as 10 years ago - including one that is supposed to be the product of the near future, out of Australia. 

With this in mind, only functions necessary to continue operations satisfactorily are needed; the rest can either be consolidated within J&J headquarters,  or gotten rid of altogether. 

The Business Development team has some outstanding people.  I'm sorry they need to look for new opportunities in this job environment.

Medical Issues - LifeScan Layoffs

My old employer, Milpitas based LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company, has asked some more people to leave.  This is sad, as unlike startups, most people at LifeScan have been here for a large number of years, sometimes a couple of decades.

The layoffs are only partially related to the economy;  the first factor is that LifeScan is slowly moving more functions across the ocean, to Switzerland.  And the second factor is a reflection of the changing face of diabetes, and diabetes testing.  The entire diabetes market is growing at a slower rate, and most companies and patients are now eager to move to continuous blood-sugar monitoring, instead of the episodic monitoring that is currently used.

LFS is a $2 Billion company, and has a lot of brilliant minds leading it.  Here's wishing them the best.

Signs of a Downturn - Yahoo cutting 3.5K Jobs

Per a Valleywag tipster, Yahoo is about to cut 3.5K jobs in early December.  The job cuts have long been rumored, but the number sounds higher than earlier guesses. 

What seems a bad move - the layoffs are going to be announced within a week of an over-the-top holiday party.  And, of course, there are rumors that the severance packages will be pathetic.

Not I'm normally ok with holiday parties - layoffs are exactly when you need to put something else up to boost up the morale of remaining employees.  LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company, did this while I was there, after their first layoff in almost a decade.  But the timing isn't good.   And, of course, if severance packages are bad, this reflects poorly indeed on the judgement of the executive team.

Most of the layoffs are rumored to be in Finance and Sales/ GA.

Yahooooooooo