Detica Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Salaries are competitive and are reviewed frequently at the lower grades. Decent benefits package (health care, travel insurance, pension and bonus). Good work life balance.

Cons

Since it is a consultancy and not a software house / IT corporation the opportunities are a little more limited. Little on offer by way of staff training.

Advice to Senior Management

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pros

The best reasons for working at Detica are the very bright people and good trainng on offer. Good knowledge sharing. Good benefits and most nights out have drinks on the house.

Cons

Boring offices, rapidly losing interesting clients. Mainly Government projects which might excite some people.

Advice to Senior Management

The processes are improving for listening to staff needs, just need to make sure that ideas are actually implemented and not just talk.

Pros

This is my third employer and I can honestly say that this Company tries hard to make a difference to its clients and its staff. The management team is relatively young (ie all around 35-40yrs old) but this makes the Company feel a bit more open and honest, with the seniors so much more approachable than I've come across elsewhere.

Cons

You can find yourself working in a variety of different locations, mainly around the south of England, but prepared to add some travel time either side of your working day. Some growing pains given the recent acquisition and rapid expansion, but at least this gives the impression of a Company going somewhere.

Advice to Senior Management

Since the acquisiton by BAE Systems, there is a new management team promoted up from within and I think it's doing well. The previous management was pretty good, but the new team has the advantage of not having to worry about share price and seems to have more focus on the future of the Company.

Pros

Intelligent people, good working environment and interesting work.

Cons

Pay and rewards are not as good as competitors. Review process can be very political rather than truly measurable.

Advice to Senior Management

Commit to developing careers and improve pay and rewards.

Pros

-Good Company Culture
-Bright people
-Work life balance is reasonable, with benefits package being ok
-Interesting project roles, wich along side competent individuals makes some projects an absolute delight to work on

Cons

-Pay is below other upper quartile fims
-Having just been purchaed by BAE systems the future is somewhat uncertain as to the direction Detica will go
-Lack of career management, the firm can sometimes slotyou into a role without taking into consideration your personal career aspirations
-Large government focus ( could be a plus or a minus)

Advice to Senior Management

Increase pay!

Pros

Interesting assignments, collegiate atmosphere at the head office. Balanced colleagues

Cons

Lack of identity as a a company.

Advice to Senior Management

Decide whether you want Detica to be niched.high-value tech consulting, or more to become a large SI. If the former, then re-raise the recruitment bar and re-market. If the latter then take out an advert in the Metro.

Pros

An atmosphere where you are surrounded by stimulating and highly intelligent people who are largely non-political. Career progression is good, particuarly at junior grades and there are many opportunities to get involved in profile raising roles and acitvities.

Cons

Opportunities in non-technical roles can be difficult to find, as business consulting is not always as populas at Detica as they state. Detica is primarily an IT consultancy, so this is where the majority of the opportunities are. Renumeration for junior grades isn't alwas as competitive as else where. There is only very limited scope to work abroad.

Advice to Senior Management

Get staff buy-in for BAE acquisition.

Pros

People and culture. Detica has a good mixture of people with different backgrounds and the company culture promotes knowledge sharing.

Cons

In order to maintain the high utilisation rates, employees are sometimes forced into roles that do not fit in with their career aspirations or lifestyle choices. In the past, this has led to high staff turnovers.

Advice to Senior Management

Implement a method that will track career aspirations and feed these information into the resouring process. This will ensure the right people are assigned to the right roles.

Pros

Detica offers consultancy firmly routed around clients' technology problems. There are a broad range of business units covering much of the UK government and commercial sectors, offering a mix of different client cultures. The senior leadership are well established, charismatic and have set out a clear vision for the future of the business.

Its people are a huge selling point - intelligent, hard working with a modesty uncommon in many larger consultancies. Although the priority is getting the work done, it offers a very good work life balance.

The graduate induction programme has become increasingly structured in recent years and now offers a firm foundation in a specific area of technology both for business and technology consultants.

Cons

The company has grown hugely over the past few years and has sometimes had difficulty in adapting its structure and processes to accommodate the larger range of people and projects it now manages. With the BAeS takeover imminent there is considerable uncertainty ahead.

Consultancy is generally limited to that concerning technology projects, though there are more exceptions given the acquisition of some more pure-play consultancies in the UK and US. Opportunities beyond the UK are only available in small numbers, as the acquisitions of the past few years take time to bed down and develop requirements for support from UK-based staff.

Cross-pollination between business units is often lacking, as is an effective cross-company approach to knowledge management.

Advice to Senior Management

In the quest for growth we must not sacrifice the emphasis on our people (skills and culture) and our clients.