NCR – “In reality, focused on short-term goals at the expense of long-term success”

Pros

There is great scope within your role to explore new possibilities and to propose change. Also the possiblility to travel extensively and work with a broad range of stakeholders, from global internal coleagues to channel partners, customers and vendors.

Cons

The current internal atmosphere is, quite frankly, shocking. Whilst there is the possibility to recommend change on numerous scales, the chances of any major change happening if it is not a top-down idea are slim at best. It is a technology-centric company, often foregoing the input of customers for the sake of technological development.

Benefits have been axed quite ruthlessly in recent months. Salary freeze, bonus cancelled and now health care slashed. In comparison with competitors and other tech companies, they've little chance of either recruiting or retaining talent. And that's despite the move of HQ to Atlanta from Dayton in search of better talent (and considerable govt subsidies).

The company is run on excel spreadsheets. There is no central data warehouse despite having spun off Teradata a couple of years ago at great profit to the CEO. For example, there is no way to analyse revenue by product line, let alone see what sells well, where and therefore make the assumptions why. It's pitiful for a supposed 'tech' company who claim to sell eMarketing SW that the basic business information is not readily available, if at all in many cases.

Staff at most levels are expected to jump when commanded, with goals and targets changing regularly (or is that irregularly?) at the whim of a rapidly growing snr mgmt team imported as FOBs, or 'Friends of Bill'. There are seelingly more and more snr managers but a dire lack of 'leaders'. In fact I've enquired about a leadership training program - of course there isn't one and that speaks volumes. One feels wholeheartedly un-enabled.

There is rumour that the CEO is setting the company up to be acquired (and given his record, that really wouldn't surprise me) but why, in the meantime, run it into the ground be reducing morale to unprecedented levels?

I couldn't possibly recommend anyone to seek employment with NCR, unless, given the current economic climate there was no alternative. Do more, with less, for less, until tomorrow, when we'll revise those measures down and up (further in the wrong direction).

I could go on and I find it sad that having only worked for the company for a relatively short time, I'm already actively looking to leave. There are widely publicised internal moral and ethical guidelines which every colleague I talk to, without fail, find utterly hypocritical.

Maybe once they've stripped the company to the bare bones, sold it off and all acquired fat multi-million dollar bonuses off the back of it, they'll actually achieve their oft-mooted ideals to become the world's leading Self Service provider but it's a pipe dream at the moment.

Advice to Senior Management

Read, understand and adopt the business philosophies of Wendelin Wiedeking, now ex-CEO of Porsche AG. The man took Porsche from a loss-making, niche sports car manufacturer to almost, almost acquiring VW (sadly he got involved in the feud between the Porsche and Piech families) and recently resigned as a result. However, he created a huge business by doing the simple things to the best of his abilities. It goes something like this -

There are 4 priorities in business -

1st - Customers
2nd - Staff
3rd - Suppliers
4th - Shareholders

He maintains that if you look after the first three groups in that order, the 4th group will look after itself. NCR, like many other under-achieving companies, focuses on the 4th group ahead of all others. Until NCR finds a 'leader' like Wiedeking, it'll continue to under-deliver and with the current activities under way, under-delivering should be the least of the comany's worries.

Nuti is no Wiedeking. Before it all goes too far, the board should remove the blinkers and realize that they need a true leader to save NCR and enable the people who put so much work in, to relaize their and the company's full potential.