I would say 90% of American corporations have no concept of the importance of the IT knowledge base to their continued existence - to them it's just another service to be outsourced like janitorial and gardening. They only find out once it's too late, after they've already done something stupid. ;)
The few companies who really do get it are moving into dominant positions in their industries.
This is a world-class company, it's in a very slow death spiral, and management has no idea. It'll still hang on for another 10 years or so, then will be acquired by another player that had the sense not to get rid of all its internal talent. Or, at least that's my prediction.
The corporate memory and skill embodied in employees is grossly underestimated. I left the employ of PacBell in 1991...along with 5,000 others. The company decided it needed to cut headcount to improve the bottom line. They did save lots of salary expense. They also wiped out 500 major projects that were underway. Out of that 500, they determined that 380 were a total loss. They no longer had the ability to proceed. They took the 100 most likely to succeed and outsourced many to a well known IT consulting firm. Nearly all of the outsourced jobs were screwed up beyond belief. Once again, the loss of corporate memory lead to incorrect decisions by unknowledgeable contractors.
One of the key reasons I joined the 5,000 in the November 1991 exodus was the sure knowledge that I would be mercilessly hammered as a resource to the outsourcing. No thanks.