Company: IBM
Date: 2009-07-17
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: current

IBM from a Financial Analyst' perspective.
Pros: 1) IBM is a big name that will definitely look good on your resume

2) With its big name, it offers a level of stability that you can never get with a SMB outfit

3) IBM has a culture of offering its employees a holistic approach to learning & understanding the organisation, which means employees can opt to experience different and various job roles every few years.

4) It allows certain level of flexibility where employees can opt to work anywhere with an internet connection

5) It's a good company to stay in if you have a family due to its comprehensive family benefits.
Cons: 1) IBM likes to offer one-stop solution to clients but it is never the case for its internal processes, with layers of bureaucracy involved.

2) It is a very sales-driven / oriented company, as a result:
a) Sales leaders / executives are often haughty and arrogant with absolute disregard for backend processes and advice from the corporate function.
b) This is further aggravated due to the sales-driven culture of the company when top management eventually takes side and supports the sales team.

3) Has a very impatient bunch of sales team who set unrealistic & impossible timelines.

4) Its holistic approach to allowing employees to experience different job roles backfires as there is a very high chance to be reporting to a manager who totally has no background of the job function he/she may be performing.

5) Flexibility to allow employees to work anywhere with internet connections more often than not translates into working even when you're back home after office hours and during weekends and holidays.

6) Managers prefer to find out and bombard staff at fault, with no intention of solving the problem objectively.

7) It offers a very slow start to fresh / inexperienced hires due to its low compensation structure & has a culture of paying low bonuses.

8) Company is so huge that factions appear among the business units and internal competition results in a driven down profit margin for the company.

9) Working hours are long with many days spent on burnt weekends and holidays.

10) Employees are not appreciated and valued, which explains the very high attrition rate of employees.

11) Its matrix structure means that employees have multiple bosses located in different locations around the world. This makes coordinating and communication very difficult especially when seemingly impossible timeline & draggy processes get in the way.