Alcatel-Lucent Reviews in Columbus, OH Area

Pros

flexibility, autonomy and the ability to carve your own path provided that you have the support of your manager and his senior staff.

Cons

The fact that it can be difficult to move from one business unit to another one in a different division even if your skill set is a match

Advice to Senior Management

create a program where informal and formal mentorships can occur. this will help alleviate the issue of top talent leaving the company.

Pros

Benefits are generally good, and the individuals who work there have a good work ethic (for the most part) and are knowledgeable

Cons

Because of the down turn in telecommunications and the recent economic gloom, cost cutting is prevalent - to the point that people who are retained are treated like cattle.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop yapping on Engage and having question and answer sessions where the answers are essentially "no comment". Less talk, more action.

Pros

Long history of technical innovation.
Lots of smart people in Murray Hill.
Still a leader in global tele com R&D.

Cons

Doesn't get the internet and it's implications.
Moves way too slow wrt product innovation.
Doesn't incent employees to innovation much.

Advice to Senior Management

Get some fresh blood in management.
Cannablize some product lines with new products.
Set some metrics for all employees to help meet.

Pros

Great team spirit at the engineer level. Flexible work hours, very casual dress in the office, occasional and permanent telecommuting generally supported, although some managers cling to a factory mentality.

Cons

The company is still torn apart by the merger. Products are promoted by partisans of the two former companies with little regard for which ones are technically superior or better suited to different target markets. Many remaining managers seem to have gotten their jobs through office politicking rather than demonstrating technical or people management skills. The company is lacking visionary leaders. Perhaps Ben Verwaayan is not too late to change the culture.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-evaluate the complete portfolio of Alcatel-originated and Lucent-originated products and decide which ones are best for each market segment. Keep in mind that large service providers have very different requirements than small service providers in emerging markets, and it probably is not possible to have a single product that scales to meet the needs of both. The company is top heavy with people who ostensibly "manage" projects, customers, offers, etc. and keeps laying off the folks who produce real products. The ratio of managers to developers is way out of whack.

Pros

If you can hang on to your job, the pay is relatively good.

Cons

Mental anguish watching thousands of people lose their jobs, factories close down. The more that leave leave more work for those that are left means stress and pressure to do "MORE with LESS". Expense reductions and layoffs substitute for ideas and innovation in the managment ranks. Watching "Bell Labs" get torn apart.

Advice to Senior Management

Highlight the top 10 profitable new products and businesses that have been started from ideas and innovations coming from the research organization in the last 5 years. What percentage of current revenue is derived from those products / businesses?