Black Box Reviews

Pros

Fleible work hours, well organized processes

Cons

No advancement opportunites, no pay increases in five years.

Advice to Senior Management

Mangement is very good. The only problem is the lack of advancment opportunities and pay increases.

Pros

To obtain professional Experience in Projects. As an IT, Telecommunication Company, Black Box is an excellent feedback for my curriculum.

Cons

Black Box is a contractor of many Company, most of them are Global Contracts. In most of the position we are expose to international professionals and the ultimate technology.

Advice to Senior Management

This company an its leaders are highly professionals. Their Global approach to Companies as a Contractor is to subcontract companies in terms of cost effectiveness. This is kind of messy because theirs to many people to respond.

Pros

You have a job, not a career.

Cons

Employee's are expected to work constantly and to be on-call 7/24.
No Home life, your work is your life.
Management does not back up Managers.

Pros

I was able to work from home while it lasted.

Cons

The primary objective for Black Box is to aquire every PBX serive company and consolidate down until the market no longer exists. Upon the success of killing an industry, the people on top become multi-millionaires and everyone else eventually loses their job.

Advice to Senior Management

Stick up for your team members and stand up to the company elites.

Pros

Black Box demands quality in their products and will not sell low end products that price compete but testing and quality are there. Return policies are liberal and great for the customer

Cons

Untrained management and underpaid workers. Its very sad with the quality products and lack of incentives for the Account Managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Motivation to the employees would fix so many of the problems. The lack of sales experience by the management team and lack of management training is causing the loss of business.

Pros

Competitive environment, fair management, and having the ability to keep up with the competition leads to a good place to work. Opportunities for advancement may increase once the economy rebounds and more companies increase CAPEX and OPEX for IT and Telephony equipment.

Cons

In the current landscape, there may not be too many opportunities to advance your career because of the business space that Black Box is in...the Telecom/IT industry has taken a big hit, but it is now starting to come around.

Advice to Senior Management

You must keep in mind that this company is built around great people and that the mission to reduce cost is not always realized by cutting head count. It may be the easiest and quickest way, but not the best way...

Pros

Very independent work place, nobody over your shoulder all the time. Coworkers were generally friendly. Management very understanding for requesting time off

Cons

No real guidance given by management. No opportunity for career advancement in audio visual field. Generally not a challenging day to day job.

Advice to Senior Management

Please be more explicit in directions and what is expected of me as an employee. It was difficult to know if i was completing my job description

Pros

Medical benefits are really good. Training is readily available through partners, but you must be self motivated and willing to put in extra hours. Product can be fun to sell. Lots of free meals / happy hours.

Cons

Serious lack of organization and professionalism. Upper management does not invest in the technology available at a low cost from partners. Antiquated; Very heavy reliance on MS Excel and MS Word instead of software programs that could make the job easier. Lack of communication. Lack of pre-sales engineering support and resources. No sales database / management tools.

Advice to Senior Management

Make investments in the technology readily available at a low cost to Black Box in order to allow employees to collaborate and AE's to spend more time selling and less time filling in Excel sheets. Give employees opportunities to use the products they sell. Listen to employees and learn to try new, innovative ways to conduct business.

Pros

Support for professional development. Cooperative branch offices that enable nationwide and international customer support. Financial capability to fund any profitable project.

Cons

For all of the talk about collaboration and resources available from Regional and HQ, requests for help often go unanswered. No one has seen a raise in five years. A recent pro-union vote has institutionalised a long standing breakdown between installers/technicians and management.

Advice to Senior Management

We had a good long run, most of which was great fun. I wish you all the best in these difficult times.

Pros

technical training is emphisied and encouraged

Cons

long hours and lack of teaming to solve issues

Advice to Senior Management

review work lod as compared with employee skill and eagerness to excel