Pros
- Exceptional Field/Customer-Facing Organization - Sales, Service, Application Engineers who drive the company's financial success in spite of internal apathy, lack of divisional support. - Excellent, Robust, Product Portfolio, albeit aging, due to lack of investment in solutions for markets outside of Biopharma and CDx. - Some good leaders in the lower echelons of management who still stand up for their teams and "manage up" in a very challenging managerial environment. - Current investment in updating a lot of internal business process systems which were long overdue for improvement. - Day-to-Day work in the field is still fun, enjoyable, with a great customer base and interesting problems to solve.
Cons
- New C-suite has implemented a "slash and burn" strategy to cut costs and Wall Street outlook in the face of slumping sales/aging technology due to a lack of R&D investment in the last decade. - New leadership's "organizational transformation" is largely viewed as an excuse to cut headcount, orchestrated by the same external consultants gutting the rest of tech/adjacent industry. - No clear path forward in terms of innovation, either through M&A or R&D. Most R&D orgs have been severely reduced through layoffs, and R&D projects "Streamlined" (canceled) with no clarity as to what development projects are still continuing. - The major cultural shift from a very charismatic, pro-employee leader and leadership organization to a very cold, uninspiring leadership team that clearly puts the bottom line first at the emplyees' expense has drastically reduced morale. Everyone is just trying to figure out which "workstream" their layoff is in. - Executive Leadership has done a pretty poor job communicating "transformation." Lots of hand-waving "goals" and "workstreams" with no clear vision. The only workstreams that have been executed are dramatic internal cost cuts for short term stock bolstering. The ones that will affect the long-term health and viability of the company (innovation, M&A, software development, automation, AI, etc.) all appear to have no real plan or strategy tied to them. - Most SVP+ leadership arrived there through nepotism, as opposed to merit, and it shows. Lots of yes men/women, with no experience in the organizations they manage, While I normally support promoting from within, to maintain what used to be a great company culture, we seem to have aggregated the shameless self-promoters/political animals at the top. I'm actually excited we've recently pulled in some leadership from outside the company. - HR routinely "benchmarking" against other companies in the industries and eroding benefits to "be more aligned with market standards" The last decade has seen the sales org lose access to profit sharing bonus, reduction in company car benefits/eligibility, a company-wide move from two bonuses a year to one (that sales still isn't eligible for), ever increasing healthcare costs for decreasing benefits, mediocre-at-best raises. It is unclear how we expect to retain the best talent and a culture of excellence by being "more like everyone else."