Company: IBM
Date: 2012-12-29
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Generally poor company to work for - many more cons than listed
Pros: Work from home, IBMr's seem professional and knowledgable.
Cons: Poor management structure - matrix no one can figure out who actually is accountable or in charge.  Incredibly pitiful (complex, difficult to use, myriad of security and login features, etc. etc)  internal business and HR types processes, procedures for employee everyday use.  Unbelieveably poor support for employees on their computers and software.  My boss was without his computer for about 3 weeks - the employees computer is required for access to everything they need for our work.  I personally lost my Lotus Notes (required e-mail system) for 5 business days with no way to get to it accept drive to an office and login on a walk-up station.  Lotus Notes owned by IBM is a far weaker e-mail system than MS Outlook.  Lotus Notes and all other internal software and systems are very cumbersome and not user friendly.  

IBM has recently made many moves to cut costs at the employees expense and loss of productivity.  It is truely a self service organization.  There is constant pressure to improve your utilization (a term used for maximizing billable hours).  Managment pressures many ways to not take your vacation, holidays, etc to improve your utilization - its part of the culture.  

IBM in the last month announced they are going to withhold 401k contributions to the end of the year (netting IBM a very large $10's of millions in time value of money/interest) and not funding those that aren't still with IBM by Dec 15th of any given year.  A quick analysis of this - nets IBM $84 Million annually +/- 50%. 

IBM is willing to try to market themselves in many areas they really have limited or no knowledge or expertise in (many areas of the "Smarter Planet").  Personally witnessed this from involvement in many marketing efforts.  IBM uses high dollar marketing executives who are very capable but limited knowledge of the basics in the markets they are persuing.

IBM's acquisition process can in many instances slash/trash and burn acquired companies.  The company I worked for was purchased and has in a few years been basically put out of business - former company employees laid off, attrition seeing the handwritting on the wall with very few survivors.

Enough said..... 

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