Pros

Pay seemed competitive
Opportunities to work in Customer facing roles
Opportunities to work globally
Very good in the Process Design, Simulation, Engineering space

Cons

Company completely lost focus.
Very poor at building lasting client relationships.
Company has bought and destroy tons of intellectually capital.
Got into manufacturing execution and supply chain software, but seems to have lost much of its install base.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell or close business units that are not part if your core strategy.

Pros

Has some of the best technologies in some areas. Sometimes gets a free hand in developing things if you know what you are doing. Get to work closely with customers

Cons

Too much management interference in some cases. Too much personal politics at higher management levels. Different organizational units have conflicting interests.

Advice to Senior Management

Make different organizational units work together better.

Pros

Aspen has some very good benefits, that have been left over from when they were first started. The salary is good and the benfits, especially the healthcare are good. Overall, the people that work there, especially in services, are nice and good to work with.

Cons

Since Mark Fusco has taken over, there is definitely a very strong focus on financial performance. Granted, strong financials are strong for any company, especially a company like Aspen that almost went under, but it seems to be taking away from the quality of the products and services, as well as the focus on people.

Aspen also seems to have an ivory tower mentality in terms of product development. The development organization is very inwardly focused and seems to look down on the customers and other parts of the comany.

Lastly, the company does not seem to really focus or care about employeed development or training. They offer elearning, but anything beyond that is near impossible to do.

Advice to Senior Management

Financials are important, but without your people and a strong customer focus, eventually the company will lose. Also, learn to better focus on the customer's actual problems and providing the best solution, not the one that is easieeset to sell.

Pros

It pays the bills until I get a better job when the economy recovers.

AZPN makes take furloughs without pay which means I can spend more time with my family.

We get free coffee.

I can ride my bike to work in the summer.

We get free bus fare to reduce global warming.

We get free soft drinks.

Cons

Company can not report earnings in a timely manner.

Senior management is clueless about how the oil and gas industry works.

AZPN senior management post messages to Yahoo chat boards on howe great of a company AZPN which contain false information.

The way AZPN books software revenue is like a ponzi scheme.

Our CEO soends too much time at his son's hockey games.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on Aspen customers instead of Advent who owns over 50% of AZPN shares.

Pros

pride in work; technology; wonderful group to people to work with

Cons

financials; management; lack of leadership and career growth opportunities;

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on initiatives to make this a great place to work; trust employees and give them more freedom

Pros

Most of the people in middle management and below are quite effective and very dedicated. People care about what they do and how it affects others, both within the company and in the customer base. Team spirit is very much in evidence.
The benefits are reasonably good (salary, vacation, 401K, insurance) -- especially compared to other companies during today's economic downturn.
The fact that it is a multi-national company means that you are given the opportunity to work with people from very different cultures and backgrounds.
Also, being a multi-national company means that you learn to interact with people remotely. Occassionally, you may even get to travel to other offices in other countries.

Cons

The upper management (CEO, CFO, ...) are not very supportive of their employees. While they have done a reasonably good job turning the company around financially, they are not very communicative with the employees and what communication we do get from them often has either a very harsh tone or a very "scolding" tone. Even information and news that SHOULD be encouraging as to the future of the company often comes across as negative due to the unpleasant way it is expressed.
We have occassional "unannounced layoffs" (for lack of a better term). Groups of people are just let go (many of them have been long term employees considered by other employees to be extrememly valuable due to their expertise and institutional knowledge), with no announcement from management that it is going to happen. Therefore, almost everyone lives in fear that they could be next. No one feels that their job is secure, even if they do a stellar job and get great reviews.

Advice to Senior Management

They should communicate better with staff. Not only more frequently, but more positively. When there is positive news to report, report it in a positive manner. When there is negative news, be honest about not only what the news is, but what it might mean. If there are going to be layoffs, let people know -- then let them know when a given round of layoffs is complete.