Acxiom Reviews

Pros

Was a great place to work. Excellent people, products and service. Benefits were good but declined over time. Was a proud place for industry professionals to join.

Cons

Leadership is as inept and irresponsible as you will find. Good people are hung out to dry. Lynchmen are kept and rewarded. For the most part, I was treated very fairly as a top performer. However, I watched too many hard working good people get put out to pasture by completely inept manager. Borderline humiliation having them on a resume these days.

Advice to Senior Management

Put people in charge who understand the data business. Get back to your roots. Whatever the plan is today, it's not working.

Pros

Work from home
Starting competitive salaries

Cons

No discipline in processes and procedures
Inovation is not promoted
Employees don't seem valued

Advice to Senior Management

The Acxiom account managers seem weak. There are many missed sales opportunities with current customers, and too many free services given away. Also, Standardize, Standardize, Standardize.. Acxiom is too unorganized with no discipline. Also leadership at the Sr. Management and Director ranges needs some fresh new faces with inovative ideas and strong management skills. There are too many middle managers without good management and business management skills to "Lead."

Pros

tons of paid time off, schedule flexibility, leadership from business leaders down seem to care about associates on a personal level

Cons

no salary increases - even with promotions, pay cuts, unpaid week every month for most salaried employees, reduced hours (down to 32) for hourly and "critical" salaried associates, no 401k matching, Client Delivery Analyst and Client Delivery Specialist roles being phased out and replaced with "shift"-working college interns, leadership is constantly instituting new methods and policies without pilot programs to test the effectiveness. The company has gone from a test and tweak until it's right business model to a "here's how it's gonna be" model - virtually eliminating any opportunity of correcting the flaws in the way Acxiom manages its business. With new methodology, all creativity and pride in taking ownership of the accounts is gone.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop wasting our time with satisfaction surveys that you do nothing to address. Pay employees somewhat close to what they're worth and not as little as you can get away with. Stop cutting the hours and pay of employees who bust their butts to succeed and are instrumental in Acxiom's successes to save the jobs of those who barely scrape by on effort. Review salaries, even if the unit leaders have to tell everyone "there's no money for raises". Make it appear like you might actually be putting SOME thought into it. Hold a town hall and answer anonymous questions written on cards where for once you must answer to the employees instead of hiding behind the business unit leaders who just claim ignorance. Don't forget who got Acxiom to what it is today: its people. The more you neglect your employees, the less they begin to care about quality, process improvements, and saving money and what once was regarded as a "career" becomes just a "job". Stop asking (no, forcing) the employees countless times to make sacrifices when you are not willing to do the same for them.

Pros

Extremely flexible; people are great and interested in what they do; ability to work remotely, professional development and learning new skills is encouraged; great place to build a solid knowledge of leading edge technologies and applications

Cons

Pay cuts, no 401 (k) match, lack of advancement, poor career succession paths / planning, lack of an efficient tool or metric to track employee utilization, poor resource deployment / management

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Acxiom is a company that still understands the importance of and supports balance of personal and professional life amongst its associates.

Cons

Acxiom is loosing the aspects of what made it a great place to work. The changes being made by leadership are either not thought through well enough or are not being communicated properly, resulting in low morale and a feeling of abandonment.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember, associates are the life blood of Acxiom. They are, also, people. Therefore, be sensitive to the psychological affects decisions begin made and being implemented have on the work force.

Pros

Paid Time off and flexibility both are very hard to beat at Acxiom.

Cons

As the title implies, pay cuts, job cuts, layoffs and people having to go part time or take Unpaid Vacation leaves is a reality. Stay away for now.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of employees, not drive them away.

Pros

Acxiom offers lots of opportunities to learn from colleagues and to work with top clients in many industries. The culture is fairly laid-back, although that is changing. The paid time off seems generous and the leadership generally seems flexible and understanding on an individual basis.

Cons

It's fairly easy to be pigeon-holed, either by not taking the initiative to branch out, or by becoming good enough at what you do that your direct leadership doesn't want you to move up. The company is going through lots of change right now as well, cutting benefits, salaries, and hours. Some of these efforts seem to be aimed at cutting costs without massive layoffs, which is great, but only for those that can afford the cuts rather than finding another job.
There's a lot of confusion along with the changes, and not many helpful answers coming down from leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want the associates to get behind your changes, spend the time and money to understand how your changes make their jobs more difficult. Then make a visible effort to solve those problems before you force the changes, rather than calling a surprise meeting to say, "We're doing this now so figure out how to get it done on top of all your other work."

Pros

Acxiom provides a good deal of flexibility in your work schedule. In Little Rock there is covered parking and a workout facility offered at no charge. The relationship with your peers is excellent and it can be a fun place to work.

Cons

Depending on the account, the hours can be extremely long and work can pile up due to the fact the account is not generating enough revenue to warrant more resources. I agree that the client and shareholders come first, but it should not be at the expense of the associate.

Advice to Senior Management

Fully develop and test the solution being offered to any new or existing client before implementing it. Make sure the resources are available to complete this in a timely and efficient manner and avoid allowing the client to dictate the terms. They should be allowed to provide input and thought leadership, but the agreement should benefit both sides.

Pros

Ability to work virtually and to pace yourself
If you can find the right people you can build some of your own solutions

Cons

Poor sales management
Few metrics that are followed consistently
Little strategic vision--many different directions; marketing seems scattershot and not designed to support the sales force
Often it was difficult to get people motivated to help with "out of the box" thinking; if you were jusyt replicating then they could help, but very few creative thinkers in the delivery and product group
A bit of arrogance from the days when they were "the only game in town"

Advice to Senior Management

Develop a solid bench of sales managers
Promote people who have a strategic vision that matches client nedds
Do something about the many layers of people in Conway who seem to have responsibility for one small function and do not understand where they fit in the solution
Remind people that clients are a good thing and should be cherished
Rethink the professional services component; make it a part of any contract

Pros

Acxiom is an excellent organization that treats its workers very well. Great benefits, great knowledge base, great opportunities for advancements.

Cons

A little slow at times, but this can give you an opportunity to re-evaluate yourself and your role within the organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep working on advancing the technical leadership. Always maintain open and constant communication with your employees. Stay focused and directed.