Ariba Reviews

Pros

huge upside if the company dumps legacy views, and thoughts that we don't sell software

Cons

12 hour days, every day

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

. Agile, no BS, get the job done.
. Smart people.
. People work with you to help unblock issues.
. Spend management product ideal for the economic downturn, so company actually made money.

Cons

. Prepare to work.
. Things are very high paced. If you don't keep up, then you'll end up getting dragged along on the ground .. face down.
. You are just a grunt unless you've been there long enough to be deemed valuable to be promoted.
. Escalations are rampant. Always feeling you are in reactive mode rather than proactive.

Advice to Senior Management

Slow down and let people catch up. Granted, some people are just too slow and those needs to be dealt with, but everybody needs a breather. You're dragging more people through the dirt with the current pace than you realize.

Pros

You get to do chores for your boss.

You get to do all the grunt work shipped to India.

Even if you work hard, you will get fired for sneezing in the wrong direction.

Cons

There are too many to list.

Just remember that they use a proprietary framework, so it will be very hard for you get another job after they fire you for not fixing 5 bugs in a day.

Advice to Senior Management

Can't think of anything. They will never get their act together. Join this company at the risk of loosing your sanity and be prepared for donkey work.

Pros

Organization focused on Engineering excellence
Good place to learn SaaS concepts
Concentrated talent, lot of talented people to work with
Small size organization, recognition is relatively faster
Good place to develop design skills
Office located within city. Cuts commute

Cons

No proper training or induction at the time of joining
Growth is slow in some teams
Food and cafetaria is average

Advice to Senior Management

Org needs to focus more on retaining the talented employees. Lot of attrition seen off late. Proper training plans needed for proper induction of new employees

Pros

Leader in the space. Has made a transition from on-premise to on-demand technology - one of the few companies that has been able to make this jump. Stock price has been jumping.

Cons

Politics will get you up the ladder, not productivity. The leadership team is thin on the products and technology experience outside of Ariba. Organizational structure is strange and still shows the effects of growing by acquisition with lots of battles among the tribes.

Investment in infrastructure has been lacking, and the company is inefficient because of it.

Sunnyvale may be the official HQ of Ariba, but everyone knows that Atlanta is the emerging and de facto HQ for Ariba.

Advice to Senior Management

How about a normal organizational structure? How about resolving the multiple overlapping groups? Oh, and why not share some of those millions that you guys are milking from the company?

Pros

- Talented people
- Good work culture
- Freedom to propose new things and get it to implement.
- recognition

Cons

The cons include the following at Ariba technologies
- Balance between personal and work life.
- company enforced processes at Ariba
- Stress

Advice to Senior Management

consider balance between work and personal life of employees,

Pros

Nothing to say but suggest engineer to rethink before joining

Cons

Master-Slave treatement and there is no respect for engineers at IDC

Advice to Senior Management

respect your engineers they are actually the backbones not the managers

Pros

great location
- light rail, caltrain
- gym
- cafe
- good parking

Cons

-requires agility
- travel to India

Advice to Senior Management

continue to grow the company

Pros

- Extremely smart, dedicated and fun people
- Regional leadership is strong
- Market leadership makes it easier to get to decision makers
- Good benefits -- health and 5 weeks vacation (including shut down week between Christmas and New Year's Day)
- Despite the bad press, Calderoni is a good guy who cares about his people
- Marketing (especially events such as AribaLive) are very well done and helpful

Cons

- Bureaucracy -- decisions are made by large committees
- Deal approval process is arduous, adding weeks to sales cycle
- Key management members manage by fear and intimidation
- Politics are very thick for a such a small company
- Lead development is weak. You need to drive 100% of your own pipeline

Advice to Senior Management

- Understand that culture is built by action not words.
- Remember that most people respond to intimidation by leaving.
- Use the company's stock to reward your people, more often. It's a great retention tool.

Pros

- Compensation
- technical challenges
- Can't tink of any thing else, It is tough to find any thing else really!

Cons

- Poor management
- IDC management has absolutely no role to play
- Everything is driven by Sunnyvale management
- No planned growth for IDC
- IDC is still no where close to be a strategic partner;
- It's rather a factory of cheap labor
- Too much politics for a company of this size

Advice to Senior Management

- You gotta move fast
- Increase productivity
- Treat your employees based on marit
- Delegate more to IDC leadership
- Be open to suggestions from engineers in IDC; they also have brains.