Bannister Mall/Cerner

[GRID]

I just want to throw this out here, but Nashville hasn’t been growing because of tech jobs. That’s Austin. I’ve seen that said like 3 times now and I had to say something. It’s industry growing it is health care services.

Maybe not historically, but recently tech jobs have been moving to Nashville in droves. Probably not at the same rate as Austin, but Nashville is becoming a tech hub.

Regardless, Amazon, Oracle alone are changing the culture of Nashville.

KC can start by figuring out what companies want. Did you see the KC proposal for Amazon? It was laughable. Great Mall, Village West etc. KC development people (Visit KC, KCADC etc) have too much pull from KS. Suburban KC is not impressive to anybody outside of the KC area yet KC spends as much time promoting village west as they to the real KC that needs to be sold. KC needs to figure that out. The entire metro needs to focus more on Downtown.

[AlkaliAxel]

Time to do a hostile takeover of Visit KC, etc. and clean it out

[WoodDraw]

Data centers are highly secure, walled off islands. I don’t suspect that will factor much into their cerner plans.

I’m not very familiar with Oracle’s current health initiatives. If there aren’t many redundancies, if any, that gives kc more hope. They’ve already slimmed their work force a bit.

It’s hard to compare to sprint/T-Mobile where it never made sense to not combine.

Moving that work force to another city would be a significant job, no pun attended. I don’t know if they have the knowledge or desire to go about offering relocation packages and hiring locally the significant number they would need, especially if we’re re still in a fairly tight labor market and anything related to the pandemic.

It might make sense for oracle to bring in their leadership team and integrate the oracle tech they want.

I don’t know, only time will tell though.

Grid is right though that these massive suburban parks emptying out is brutal on the kc office market.

[earthling]

Convincing/encouraging Oracle to invest in data centers would be an easier low hanging fruit to pursue as potential momentum for other things, not an end game in itself. It's an industry KC has a real shot at nearly instantly becoming a top player. Convincing Oracle to invest more into KC should be a goal and adding DCs keeps KC on Oracle's radar investment wise not a job producer in itself, but may also help maintain Health presence if not other Oracle divisions. Would be lost opportunity not to pursue DCs.

[WoodDraw]

I mean fine, but a data center employs like 100 people, and they’re secluded from the rest of the company.

Go after them, but it’s a different conversation really.

[earthling]

Understood DCs don't employ many (mentioned that) but the investment dollars are huge with long term ongoing 3-5 year equipment lifecycle upgrades. Keeping KC on Oracle's radar investment wise can ancillarily help maintain the existing Health presence if not attract other divisions. It's not just the DC function itself but the concept of establishing ongoing investment that significant. Not a different conversation because it's an opportunity for the Bannister complex, which is maybe a better fit for more DCs than expanding an 80s style office park, though can easily accommodate more of both.

Many Oracle jobs are transient given WFA culture, the data centers are not. Good way to firmly plant deep roots in addition to attempting to maintain 13K existing local employees.

[earthling]

Cerner jobs page currently shows 448 open jobs located in KC area. Out of those 282 qualify for 'virtual'. That's over 60% that potentially may not live in KC area. They define Virtual requirement as.. "Must live within 60 miles of a major international airport" though not clear if for every virtual job, edit: probably depends on role and what hiring manager is willing to accept. Would imagine new budgets will kick in after new year with a wave of additional hiring so will be interesting to see what % qualify for remote.

On a separate note, Oracle can show with action they are committed to KC for Health by leasing out the W&R building downtown and move all existing Oracle Health related jobs based out of KC, whether virtual or not. However the Cerner deal may not close until end of next year.

[AlkaliAxel]

I thought we already knew Cerner was moving a huge chunk to remote? That was old news

[earthling]

These appear to be work from anywhere, not just work from home within KC (which is about 75% that are pandemic related). WFA has increased from under 50% to now about 60% of new KC jobs posted. The WFA jobs are maybe partly because they can't find the talent in KC and/or perhaps because they are closing other sites and maybe not enough room in new campus.. perhaps. Or perhaps they're simply aligning with Oracle WFA as a long term strategy. WFA has a much different impact on KC than WFH.

[AlkaliAxel]

These appear to be work from anywhere, not just work from home within KC (which is about 75% that are pandemic related). WFA has increased from under 50% to now about 60% of new KC jobs posted. The WFA jobs are maybe partly because they can't find the talent in KC and/or perhaps because they are closing other sites and maybe not enough room in new campus.. perhaps. Or perhaps they're simply aligning with Oracle WFA as a long term strategy. WFA has a much different impact on KC than WFH.

I wouldn't worry too much on that front. Maybe a few, but a KC salary isn't gonna allow you to move yourself into a comfy place in NYC. Especially the ones with families, they're not going anywhere.

[kcjak]

These appear to be work from anywhere, not just work from home within KC (which is about 75% that are pandemic related). WFA has increased from under 50% to now about 60% of new KC jobs posted. The WFA jobs are maybe partly because they can't find the talent in KC and/or perhaps because they are closing other sites and maybe not enough room in new campus.. perhaps. Or perhaps they're simply aligning with Oracle WFA as a long term strategy. WFA has a much different impact on KC than WFH.

I wouldn't worry too much on that front. Maybe a few, but a KC salary isn't gonna allow you to move yourself into a comfy place in NYC. Especially the ones with families, they're not going anywhere.

But these are new or open positions, not people already working for Cerner. If someone from OKC, Memphis or suburban Chicago can work for Cerner remotely, and they can WFH why move to KC if you have cheaper housing or better urban amenities? I work for a large company here in KC and we're still WFH - a LOT of folks, including those with families, are working remotely from places like San Diego, Montana and rural Missouri.

[earthling]

Wonder what total capacity will be within KC Cerner offices for remaining buildings after they close the other sites. No announcement for more buildings on Bannister campus. Any Cerner employees here that have more insight? Can post in the anonymous rumors section.

[dukuboy1]

some nice articles in the KC Business journal sharing some insights from other KC tech Executives. Helps start to frame a possible big picture iimpact even better. Interesting thoughts and of course this will be an interesting thing to watch unfold in 2002

[earthling]

^This one has the most substance of several BizJ articles...
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... -cuts.html

In previous acquisitions, Oracle has trimmed workforces. Soon after buying PeopleSoft in 2005, Oracle announced plans to lay off 5,000 employees, with a majority expected to come from the PeopleSoft side, which at the time had 11,000-plus employees. However, it planned to retain more than 90% of PeopleSoft’s product development and product support teams, The New York Times reported.

Oracle also laid off 2,000 people after its Siebel Systems Inc. acquisition but said most of the cuts would be at Oracle. The layoffs included a mix of back-office roles and those working on Oracle’s E-Business Suite 11i, Computerworld reported.

With its Sun Microsystems acquisition in 2010, Oracle trimmed about 1,000 employees, but also simultaneously announced plans to hire 2,000 Sun employees to help the company grow.

Netsmart CEO Mike Valentine, a former Cerner COO, wonders how much of Cerner will stay in the Kansas City market.

“In all probabilities, they need the domain knowledge, but they have development resources around the globe, they have cloud resources, and they have product management resources,” Valentine said of Oracle.

Valentine expressed optimism, however, that Oracle will focus on growing Cerner’s workforce and helping the North Kansas City-based company gain customers globally.
...
An unknown factor, Hense said, is how remote working will play a role in future hiring, making it tough to judge the potential effect on Kansas City.

If history of other acquisitions plays out, Cerner may see some initial lost jobs, some growth as biz grows but the bigger question is portion held in KC and WFA impact. Will be surprising if Cerner announces another office building for Bannister campus. KCMO and State should go big on offering data center incentives for another Oracle Cloud region at Bannister location just to plant firmer roots with ongoing Oracle investment into KC. Might be easier to hold onto local Cerner jobs and perhaps grow more in future.

[normalthings]

Cerner has to spend months with local college grads to get them up to speed with grads from other schools. This is not a region that is producing talent oracle wants. We can attract but don’t produce. That is a fundamental problem with KC and region.

[AlkaliAxel]

Cerner has to spend months with local college grads to get them up to speed with grads from other schools. This is not a region that is producing talent oracle wants. We can attract but don’t produce. That is a fundamental problem with KC and region.

I’ve been holding my tongue on the “college in KC” topic but this is getting heavily exaggerated. UMKC isn’t an Ivy League school but it’s *fine* school and there’s nothing wrong with it. They also have some of the best Grad programs out there.

KU is also just 30 miles down the road and is AAU accredited. Again, it’s a very solid school with some great programs.

They’re both probably viewed more or less the same as any other state school in the US. And most college grads in this country go to state schools like UMKC, KU, MU or KSU.

These schools aren’t elite level but they’re both either within the city or close by and they produce solid talent. It’s just getting egregiously exaggerated how bad they are. They’re solid schools, and the Grads do good work.

[normalthings]

The state schools in our region aren't even good by state school standards. Let alone our lack of a top-tier private university.

[AlkaliAxel]

That’s not what the rankings say? Our schools by the rankings are solid state schools. KU business school is pretty well ranked. Now I agree we’re lacking a private school but KU & MU grads do perfectly fine. We’re not Alabama lol.

[FangKC]

It's isn't just a standard university situation we need. We need more focus on computer science, engineering, biomedicine, chemistry, technology, and research.

[earthling]

^Need grants and/or philanthropy that creates school divisions like Bloch School of Mgmt at UMKC. City and local ecodev groups should encourage a rich Cerner exec from Cerner/Oracle sale to start a ComSci/Tech school within UMKC. At least programs that focus on skills Oracle/Cerner needs. A lot of tech jobs just need certifications (some are difficult), not BS degrees so building up junior college programs and high school votech toward certs would be a good start too.