IBM Reviews in Phoenix, AZ Area

Pros

Great Company, Great place to collaborate and learn, Great people and friendly colleagues , ample opportunities to grow your career

Cons

Get involved in too many organizational activities and it becomes more important than actual work done at the client place

Advice to Senior Management

The company did exceptionally well even during the recession and profitability increased which shows that the leadership has done a great job in cutting cost and retaining business

Pros

- lots of smart people that, for the most part, work with you and share
- the largest R&D in the industry - more patents than all competitors combined
- customers never say "what was your company's name again?"
- unbelievably broad product sets

Cons

- Promotions and "Resource Actions" (IBM's fancy term for layoffs), are seemingly based on political alliances
- like all large tech companies, end-of-quarter frenzies where you are asked to push your customers into buying something before the quarter ends even if it is not in THEIR best interest
- my manager visited me twice: once to lay out new territories and, the second time to lay me off.
- IBM apparently has about a 12-24 months 'attention span' when it comes to storage. They wander in and out of markets faster than any company I've ever seen. Example? They announced a new line of NAS products a few years ago. I bought in and sold a solution to a large health insurance company in Phoenix, assuring them (because this is what I was told) that "IBM is in the NAS business for the long-haul." Within a very few months IBM dropped this product line and aligned themselves with NetApp. While not necessarily a bad thing to be aligned with NetApp (and not necessarily a good thing, either), how many companies come out with new products and push them hard for 6 months, then give up, deferring to a superior product from a competitor?
- when I was laid off my manager did not have accurate revenue numbers for me. He ignored a $400,000 sale then, when I told him about a $1.5 million deal that was going to close the next month, he didn't seem interested in knowing about it. Why? You'd have to ask him but in my opinion it is because he made his decision based on politics and didn't want to be 'confused with the facts.'

Advice to Senior Management

- stop reorganizing your sales and technical sales forces every January, then again in July. You are allowing yourself to be confused about the difference between the words 'nimble,' 'flaky" and 'irrational.'
- if you are going to make changes, make them in the mid-level manager level. Political alliances, aka the good old boy (or girl) network, keeps the same people in the same or similar positions forever. What that means is that their employees are treated like animals that eat their own young; these managers do whatever it takes to keep their job, and surround themselves with a group of people who will defend each other to the death even when what they are saying or doing is very wrong.
- for gosh sakes, have someone come in and teach you how to run a sales organization. If I had .05% of the R&D money that you have wasted over the years on developing what were truly excellent products, and that you gave up on because your sales force didn't sell enough of them, I would be a billionaire. Other companies can sell MEDIOCRE products and you can't sell terrific technology? I repeat: find someone who can teach you how to run a sales organization. Unintelligent decisions are made every year on what products sales personnel will be 'paid on.' One year System x reps are paid for DS3000's, then next they are not. then the next year they are. Why not simply pay them a different level of commission for products that you want to 'de-emphasize' rather than completely stop paying for that product?
- I have never worked so hard in my life for a company only to be thrown under the bus. I made my quotas, was a loyal, team oriented player, and was very knowledgeable about my products. Why wasn't that good enough? And why do you allow managers such as mine to dishonestly represent my revenue production so I didn't rock his boat on a decision he had made on incorrect information? Let me emphasize, I was NOT fired. I was 'selected for the Resource Action.' How sick is that?

Pros

It is a job where most of work from any place.

Cons

IBM almost forces you to work from home, so they do not pay internet connection or office space rent. 55 hr work weeks are common and do not get vacation time when scheduled.
Reduce employee count without realining duties.
1% pay increase for 2+ performer and 2% bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

Share the wealth as the everyday employees are the ones who interact with customers. Money should be available for training. Stop purchasing other compainies products when we make the same thing such as storage, we have 3par and hitachi in inventory

Pros

I worked for IBM to obtain training and opportunity. Even though there have been significant cutbacks in funding for education, IBM is still a good place if you need to further your education, (e.g.BA, Phd). The work at IBM is challenging and looks good on a resume.

Cons

No matter what career path you take, expect to get the feeling that you will be laid off any moment. Layoffs are the norm as work transitions outside the US. Pay and benefits also change constantly so expect to spend a lot of your time with financial planning and understanding health insurance terms. Pay is OK for employees hired with upper level degrees. Don't expect recognition if you earn an upper level degree once hired.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper leadership needs to work on regaining employee commitment by showing real and substancial commitment to the workforce. Give 1st and 2nd line managers the ablity to really manage their peices of the business.

Pros

Excellent reputation; talented colleagues; challenging assignments

Cons

Too much travel; offshoring many US jobs; lack of management vision

Advice to Senior Management

Need to focus on growth as well as profitability; HP is now significantly larger than IBM (20% and the gap is growing)

Pros

1. Be on the forefront of new, leading edge technologies
2. Ability to travel to client sites
3. Flexibility
4. Good work life balance
5. Interesting projects
6. Ability to grow/learn

Cons

Salary adjustment - moving from state to state, they would not increase according to cost of living because I initiated the move.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep continuing to mentor and bring new leaders (from within the organization), giving those deserving a chance to succeed.

Pros

You work with very competent and knowledgeable peers. Great people.

Cons

IBM ignores all but the top 5% of the company when doling out promotions and compensation. Executives occupy space based on the Peter Principal. Managers are bureaucratic robots put in place to cull 10% of the population. This year it will be greater than 10% as more and more jobs are moved offshore. Was once the greatest place anyone could work, not anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

I managed at IBM for over 7 years so I know that a company runs on the efforts from all employees, not just the top 5%. More respect should be given to the top 90%. Remember, employees (and companies) fail due to poor management.

Pros

TO say you worked for "IBM"

Cons

Management didn't care. Open door policies tagged you as a bad employee. There is no ability to move to another division within the company. The only way to work for IBM these days is if they buy the company you currently work for. Then they weed out almost everyone from the original company and lay off existing staff and move the jobs to Argentina (the new india).

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of all the layoffs, find places for employees to stay within the company. I realize "everyone is replaceable, and everyone wants to work for IBM". But you guys are loyal to the company - and you wouldn't get your bonuses if it weren't for the pions doing all the work. It's also way to common for most people to not get raises and bonus pools are always next to nothing. Unless your manager deems you to be a superstar - you're screwed with this company.

Pros

Some of the brightest people that I've ever worked with work at IBM. IBM has invented a number of significant, important parts of the Information Technology industry. This includes relational database technology and hard disk drive technology. IBM is one of the few companies that actually performs the "Research" portion of "Research and Development".

Cons

Like many large companies, IBM is laden with bureaucracy and often inane procedure. Also, it is completely beyond understanding why a company that has reported record earnings, record profits and has a positive outlook for 2009 would - one day after it's proclamation to the financial community - commence laying off 5,000 of its employees, most of whom were real contributors to the company's success. IBM's approach to this latest round of layoffs was very calculating, ensuring that no single location was affected in a significant enough way to require additional notice or pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Fess up ... you're cutting people in a significant way. It's material and shouldn't be hidden. Also, go back and focus on core competencies and stop trying to be Oracle by buying every little company that catches your fancy.

Pros

If you're just starting out in your career it can be a great place to network with a lot of people in your field. You can sample a lot of different job types just by talking to people.
They have great mentors that are really helpful. You have to take the initiative to find a great mentor though.
They have a lot of internal tools that can be very useful, they can also be a pain to learn since there are so many of them.
Web 2.0 technologies are being adopted by IBM and there's definitely a lot of cutting edge stuff you can get involved in IF you join the right team.
Good benefits and flexible work hours/location.

Cons

Upper management could care less about the low level employees.
Layoffs will hit your department at least once every two years, if not more often. Good performance ratings won't save anyone either.
If you don't want to be a small fish in a big pond then IBM will not be for you - nor will any large company.
There's a lot of politics and processes that keep things from moving along.
The day after laying off thousands of employees Sam will tell the president of the US that creating new "21st century jobs" is important and something that IBM is doing.

Advice to Senior Management

Streamline the processes involved with certain things and pay attention to what first line managers are telling you.