Activant Solutions (California) Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California) full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Coworkers were great. We stuck together through it all.

Cons – Management needs to spend some time in the trenches again to remember how their changes affect process. When the ownership changed (again) a lot of good people and years of product knowledge were lost.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your front line people and stop layoffs of the people with the most product knowledge

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – The employees within Activant made it a good place to be. As long as you worked with Directors and below, you had a good chance of success and satisfaction. Geographic location was also a consideration. I lived closed to the office, thus it was worth staying.

Cons – Poor management skills. VP and Sr VP titles handed out based on longevity vs. capabilities. Most VP level executives are simply waiting for their tour of duty to end. No feeling of responsibility toward employees under them. The world is theirs -- we simply live in it.

Advice to Senior Management – Build something. Stop hanging on. Offer visions and strategies, so employees know where the ship is headed. Come to terms with the fact that you are not the smartest people in the company, and let others contribute.

Current Employee – been working at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – Large organization. Good people overall as employees.

Cons – Management is too focused on EBITDA and not enough attention is paid to growing the company. Too many platforms to manage effectively. Sr. Management seems a little too shortsighted and overcontrolling.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire good people and trust them to make decisions in their departments. Focus on growing the company's top-line and the EBITDA will follow. Lead by example.

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – The people. Good experience working with small business owners.

Cons – Watching management work is like watching a bucket of crabs. Instead of focusing on working together to get out of the bucket they focus of pulling each other down to make themselves look better.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of the entrenched middle management that look to make the other managers look bad and blame frontline managers and supervisors for poor results and issues. Middle management is anyone not the president or a frontline manager.....

Current Employee – been working at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – Good work/life balance that is promoted by Sr. management. It is not a overtime every night kinda place but a 8-5 place. Most people seem to arrive after 8am and leave before 5:30pm. Good job if you have a family, another job or a hobby.

Cons – No upward career mobility because they expect you to just do your job and be happy about it. Most decisions need to go to Senior management. Salary increases only match inflation, if there are any salary increases. Most employees are long timers who have been at the company over 10 years and they don't know a different way of doing things or have different ideas. Very stifling if you want to grow in your career.

Advice to Senior Management – Management needs to provide a compelling vision for the company and not just focus on EBITDA for the next quarter. A vision where we believe and can strive for. Where is the company going? What is the future look like?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – Activant provides opportunities to their sales team to be extremely successful. The company recently has attempted to go back to its roots of customer support and service and this has been a positive move that has been recognized by its customers.

Cons – Activant is a sales driven company that easily loses its bearings related to existing customers. The next sale is more important than keeping its existing customers satisfied.

Advice to Senior Management – There are many seasoned employees that are stifled by a lack of opportunity to get their voice heard. Senior management lacks sustained focus on initiatives, hopping from one project to another before they allow results to show.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – Well respected product, long tenured employees with excellent knowledge of target markets. Well established and loyal customer base create very steady and reliable recurring revenue stream.

Cons – Economic downturn has heavily impacted target markets. Future direction of the company toward new growth markets or innovative products that will propel growth is not clear, as there does not appear to be any new, innovative thinking that will drive future growth. Service model has not adapted over time, and perceived value to customers is in question. Slightly lower comp plans than is typical in most other software/service sales positions.

Advice to Senior Management – Return to a sincere "customer first" support model that delivers real value to existing customers based upon their stated desires. Look for growth markets and technologies that will broaden the offering and drive future expansion in new directions (difficult to achieve, but critical to future success). Honor the contributions of long-term employees who have built the foundation.

Former Employee – worked at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – Co-workers and supervisors are the best around. Long term relationships with customers are rewarding. Job assignments with lots of versatility keep job boredom at bay.

Cons – Supervisors & managers work hard to buffer the indifference (near hostility) of upper management towards the work force. The work force works hard to buffer the customer from the indifference (new hostility) of upper management from the customer. The customer has fewer and fewer reasons to invest in the "top of the line" when every corner is cut.
Every six months or so a new initiative is hatched. It gets a lot of fan fare, no follow through and never the funds or support needed for a successful campaign. Soon it is forgotten and yet another initiative planed. There have been dozens of them. Remember "do it once"? That was a successful, long lasting campaign from the 80's!
Meanwhile, I don't know a single field employee, (not familiar with the "in house employee" habits) be it sales, education or engineering who doesn't work many hours a week more than their paycheck reflects yet that does not constitute commitment at review time, it is expected. Dear Employee, Your company thanks you for your dedication to the well being and growth of the company. In recognition of your contributions we are awarding you with an NI and no merit increase,. Don't take it personally, we have to do it to someone in every department, every year, it's just your turn. Better luck next year.

Advice to Senior Management – Loose the "us and them" mentality with both your customers and co-workers, yes we ARE co-workers. Granted, your pay is more than ours but you work for someone else too. Come back down to earth and realize you have not been successful. Please read these reviews as though they were your performance review. If they were, your next stop would be Monster.com. How bad is it going to have to get before you get some humility? Hiring consulting firms has proven to be an exercise in back slapping and ego inflation activity. Get back to basics. Call Ralph!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – The benefits package at Activant is very generous with the recent exception of the termination of matching funds for 401k contributions. In fact, there are many employees whose stated reason for working there are the comprehensive benefits. There are alot of bright people and the culture is positive, but very segmented.

Cons – There are alot of senior staff that have been with the company for way too long. Their skill sets and capabilities are no longer competitive in the industry, but it is almost impossible to get fired for incompotence at Activant. Very little emphasis is placed in achievment. Attempts at improvement are rewarded no matter what the outcome is. Activant is really 5 or 6 different companies with boundless redundancies.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire a few less "remote" executives that employees couldn't pick out of a line up. For god's sake... if your really worth high six figures then pack your bags and meet some of the people you will be responsible for. It seems like there is a new VP or GM every other week, but knowledge workers have been consistantly laid off for a year now... too many chefs spoil the broth.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Activant Solutions (California)

Pros – the front line people and mgrs, and customers are the best reason to work here

Cons – finance driven, cuts deeply into resources, and asks alot of time to be invested by others to stay on top of it

Advice to Senior Management – listen to your customers and employess

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend