Pros

Good for old employee and manager. This is first company where architects and oldies are code reviewer and questions asker

Cons

Please be careful before joining this company. They say fix 5 defects in a week else straight forward say look job outside else they layoff you in 5 min. Just they are taking advantage of recession. They hire by making lots of good words and fire immediately without answering why are they firing. They work on ariba framework and all customised code. Nothing you wil learn. At time of hiring they don't say what they do just they say we work on core java.

Advice to Senior Management

I found misleading management who just care managers and not developers.

Pros

Progressive vision, passionate employees, very smar, and talented colleagues. There is a very good atmosphere of teamwork and coperation. There does exist a chance to make an imapct, if you are aligned in certain segments of the company.

Cons

Downsides of Ariba include limited advancement opps within sales/account management, a comp plan to is not quite on par with other SaaS companies, and a very challenging internal beaurocravy.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to invest in technology advancement, create an affordable mid-market solution, limit internal red-tape to speed deal volocity, improve customer service,offer more options for internal adancement.

Pros

The Solutions are relevant and valuable in today's economy. Most understand and value teamwork and you would be hard pressed to find an Aribian that wasn't willing to help if they can. The compensation & benefits are good.

Cons

Executive Leadership is weak & vague and they either have no strategy, or it changes so often that unless you are in the know it would never seem like there was one. Politics and favoritism abounds so if you aren't connected politically, you will be overlooked for promotions and opportunities. The company fails to invest in the areas that they say are important to them & managment by fear is common technique used by managers.

Advice to Senior Management

We have a great solution suite and all the makings of a GREAT company. Our culture stinks and as our leaders it's up to you to model differently. Start and keep investing in things you all say are important to our health as a company.

Pros

experience with different products/technologies and opportunities to work with well known companies

Cons

opportunities feels like it will be limited by senior management's direction

Advice to Senior Management

aribians are some of the brightest in the business, but they need to feel there is ample opportunity in the future.

Pros

Good pay and benefits. The variety of customers makes everyday a learning opportunity. The work culture is quite relaxed

Cons

Be prepared to work hard, sacrifice your personal life without any rewards. Forget promotions or salary hikes. Be prepared to see processes being rolled out everyday without training and employees expected to follow them. Be prepared to play politics and please your manager to have any chance of advancing in your career

Be prepared to have everything delegated to you from the mangerial level. Also you will see managers relaxing and just attending calls while employees will be slogging their butts off

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating employees like idiots and managers like geniuses. Such blanket treatment is not going to help you retain people

Pros

it is within the city limits
vacation policies are ok
some of the folks are good to work with and some teams appears to be better than the others

Cons

one will not get anything here if you are not in your manager's favorites
no guidance or effort to retain people
only manager favorites are retained and given more opportunities
I was forced to take up something I did not like to do by threatening that I may be laid off if not taken
manager's favorites are always given the tasks as per their choices or which could get them more recognition

Advice to Senior Management

retain good people instead of mediocre managers

Pros

Money & autonomy, heavy but good processus

Cons

Poor management, delivering fear as motivation. Only able to move every day from one contry to another to show activity.
The best answer in the pre sales team : "I have no time"
The best answer in the manager team : "don't ask me to solve the problem, give me solutions ! Arrange a conf call with your colleagues ..."

Advice to Senior Management

not interested in ginving any feedback

Pros

Time off and flexibility in your work

Cons

Lack of recognition, poor management and communication, no career opportunity.
They won't help you in your career, and depending on who your manager is, your team will be treated with more or less respect.

Advice to Senior Management

Replace most of the half developers/managers by real managers and start taking real decisions to make the company move forward!

Pros

I enjoy working with my coworkers. The medical benefits are ok and Ariba also offers educational reimbursement. At times the enviroment is a "sink or swim" type of enviroment which can lead to great (or not so great) learning experiences. Ariba does offer a lot of vacation time along with winter break (week after Christmas Ariba is closed). There are other perks depending on where you are located....if you are in the CA office you get a free gym membership, work your own hours, have a special time off policy and get to rub elbows with the "big dogs". If you are not in the CA office you most likely have a different time off policy that says you lose your time at the end of the year, no free gym but you do get free cans of soda while in the office.

Cons

I have not had any assistance with career devolpment. Upper management never seems to be able to make a decision so we just keep going with the flow. There are a ton of manual processes due to Ariba's internal structure but managment still refuses to make a decision about changing the processes to save time/money. Every decision that is made by managment is based on how other managers will feel about this change. No one seems to want to be the bad guy and make the difficult decisions. A lot of Aribas policys are not followed and employees are advised that the policy is just a guideline and the ultimate decision is up to your manager. This allows for a lot of anger to build due to one group being allowed to do one thing but another is not.

Advice to Senior Management

You're employees are unhappy - make some changes that are good for them.

Pros

Majority of the employees are young and eager to work. Benefits are decent and it's a relaxed work environment. Ariba has brand name customers (like P&G, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, etc.) and interacting with those customers can be a rewarding experience and could possibly result in a job at one of thos customers.

Cons

Middle management that never leaves and impedes all progress/change. The software/solutions are really a niche that will likely never earn a profit. Change takes so long that most people stop trying to accomplish change and just go with the flow.

Advice to Senior Management

RIF the Mid Management Tier and Promote. Stop rewarding yourself with so many stock options.