Great Product, Fun people to work with, and Major issues that need to be addressed to get things back on track
Pros
Great Software, Customer Support is top notch, fun atmosphere (ping pong, parties, etc.), excellent Users Conference, Strong on-site professional services with a couple of really good pre-sales engineers. Sales Admin is very helpful in helping to provide fun activities. Coffee Machine is amazing, and the Cafeteria was pretty sweet. It was a software that i truly enjoyed selling, and could feel good about the impact made on my customers and their organizations. Customers were put above all else, and the level of customer service iDashboards provided was a source of tremendous pride for me. The vast majority of iDashboards employees are very friendly, and always willing to help.
Cons
It is difficult to write in this section, because I have so much respect for a lot of individuals at iDashboards and I truly wish for iDashboards to have a ton of success, but I wanted to provide honest opinions. After all, no workplace is ever all "sunshine and roses". I am just providing the information below because I literally gave all i had to this organization for the better part of three years, was clearly a top performer, and unfortunately was not reciprocated in the form of advancement opportunities, or true appreciate of my efforts. It really does hurt that after all my efforts I was driven to the point where I needed to seek out a new opportunity. I want people who are looking into the organization to have a clear view of the good and bad points as things stand now: It is very difficult for new sales reps to ramp up. This is evident in significantly high turnover of the sales team. The sales organization structure provides incentive for managers to cherry pick the best leads (which is extremely de-motivating), these managers are then put on a pedestal as "top sales performers" even though they are managers?. This creates an environment where growth becomes very difficult and the morale among reps suffers. Reps are forced to drum up high percentage of business off of out bound cold call efforts which is extremely difficult in a complex, enterprise level sale. I was fortunate to have significant success, but it consumed a very large part of my time, leading to being burned out (ie. terrible work/life balance due to the hours I needed to put in to have success). Professional development within sales was not a priority, and at this point in time there is very little ability for career advancement (ie. lack of sales/company growth, and people being promoted to management just because they have been there a long time, even though some lack legitimate managerial skills). The wrong metrics are heavily focused on (ie. # of calls, talk time, etc.) largely because there is no one willing/able to provide constructive feedback regarding the real skills of effectively presenting, and then winning deals in a complex sales environment. There are two separate organizations just within sales (Enterprise and Cloud). This adds to the internal conflict created when managers feel entitled to keep the best leads for themselves. This puts a lot of company imposed hurdles for new sales reps, and is why a very low percentage pan out. The company is limiting growth by not having just one sales organization where every sales person can sell the entire product offering. This constantly causes situations where the cloud team is trying to push "cloud" constantly, and the enterprise team is always trying to keep deals "enterprise'. This structure costs the company significant revenue and hampers the prospective customer experience. The CEO is a very intelligent individual who should be commended for creating an excellent product that fills a specific need within the marketplace. He is very passionate, and I have a lot of respect for his ambitions toward the success of the company. Unfortunately the CEO just does not respect, trust, or place significant value on effective sales people "this software is so great it should sell itself" is easy to say when you never really had to sell it. It is great software, but it is still a very competitive environment that requires talent to effectively convey value to customers in a concise, effective manner. Even though business is done over Go To Meeting, sales reps are not able to work from home no matter how much success they have had. This lack of trust by the CEO is unfortunate, and is mirrored by the lack of trust many employees have that question the CEO's leadership skills, understanding of organizational dynamics, and actual ability to create a growth culture. A growth culture is one where the organization can truly get comfortable with conflict, and have the ability to freely discuss "elephant in the room" type issues without fear of repercussion. The Marketing department as it stands now is largely ineffective. Operationally they are able to coordinate campaigns, trade shows etc, when asked, however there is nothing close to the visionary type needed to take the company to new heights. Best marketing talent has left the organization within the past several years, and there is not anything remotely resembling any strategic vision (although a recent hire seems to show significant promise and a lot of energy). For such a great product, the brand should and could be much stronger. Marketing is definitely not pro-active, but instead serve the role of "order takers" and then decides whether they have the time to perform certain tasks. Sales teams largely are creating their own marketing materials due to lack of trust that Marketing actually knows why customers buy the product. At this point in time, I am disappointed to say that I could not recommend a role within the sales organization to a friend. There are other areas of the company that I would be happy to recommend individuals to work at iDashboards. Hopefully changes are made for the sake of new reps that join the team in the future.
