NEC Corporation of America Reviews

Former Employee – worked at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – Autonomy to do your job and take on new challenges or initiatives.
Some decent mid-level managers.
Some incredible individual contributors.
A smattering of some truly great, innovative products: HYDRAstor, Virtual PC Center, Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
High quality products.
If you were willing to take initiative, risk, and more work without additional pay, title, budget or resources, you could (note the past-tense) create some programs with impact and get some recognition for it.

Cons – Major cuts in April 2009, Sept/Oct 2009, and March 2010 to both budget and headcount - each one deeper than the previous one and often without a clear picture of how to move forward. The last one cut 95% of marketing for a division that analysts had stated needed better marketing.

In a nutshell, NEC is a once-great company that is slowing dying due to poor organizational structure, antiquated culture and high-level executive management that is neither visionary nor nor clear on direction nor connected to their workforce, customers, or even the rest of the world. NEC Corporation of America is really just a distribution vehicle for NEC Corporation in Japan and lacks the funding, direction, products, and information needed from Japan to be successful.

- CEO changes in America and the parent company in Japan every 2-3 years just because that is just what they do.
- Inability to quickly adapt and change with changing market needs due to Japan needing to collaborate with every organization, discuss things and ask the same questions 100s of times, refusal to believe the information they are given if it doesn't agree with what they want, and then requiring 100% buy in on any change or action by multiple executives and divisions.
- Lots of promises, but zero commitment in actions/money to growth outside Japan.
- Lack of focus
- Unrealistic financial goals with neither the product, organizational, human or innovative strategy on how to make that happen.
- Major disconnect between upper management and the rest of the company and even the global market.
- True lack of understanding about business/market differences outside of Japan.
- Pay is WELL below industry average.
- Your manager WILL change every 6 to 9 months. This can be good or bad.

Advice to Senior Management – The last 6 months (Oct 09 thru Mar 10) you've been moving the wrong direction. You need to be more of a global company than an international one. Check out what HDS did to become more of a global company and follow suit...FAST.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – Global impact, very diverse workforce.

Cons – Poor management in the division I worked. Constant reorganization without taking the necessary steps to improve. Kaizen was preached but not acted upon. Too many cultural barriers and petty games to allow the division to succeed.

Advice to Senior Management – For the IDS division at least there are several nimble competitors whose technology was not too far behind NEC's and whose pricing was very competitive, leaving NEC floundering like a large fish without enough water. Managers must work with their teams instead of lording over them and there must be checks and balances to keep the bad individuals from driving away the talented.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – Good benefits and stable company if you are planing to retire soon and do as little as possible.

Cons – No investments from Japan, poor product management planning, heavy managed from Japan and poo leadership.

Advice to Senior Management – Let NECAM operate like an American company and plan its own market strategy.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – Good money, Good Benefits, Great education, great location

Cons – Lots of "reogranization" = RIF

Advice to Senior Management – Letting people go after 10,15 and 20 years is unbelievalbe - shame on you

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – We have a highly experienced and worldly management team. They have worked at other Japanese subsidiaries, and successfully made them independent of the mothership. The folks they brought on are knowledgeable hard workers. Some higher-level positions get to travel to Japan on a regular basis.

Cons – NEC HQ (in Japan) definitely wants to have a share of the large US market. As a result, every few years, NEC HQ brings in a new management team. They try to correct the failings of the previous team, they correct some mistakes, but repeat a lot of the same mistakes, and end up failing for one reason or another.

Advice to Senior Management – Round after round of senior management is brought into NEC Corp of America, and fail every time. They change everything and continue to fail; what NEC HQ (in Japan) doesn't recognize is that the only consistent thing in every failure is NEC HQ's interference and NEC's products.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – -People
-Salary
-Benefits
-Opportunities for advancement
-Exciting and challenging industry to be in

Cons – -Slow to execute necessary changes to business model
-Senior management's lack of focus on holistic improvements
-Too many chiefs...

Advice to Senior Management – -Focus on making changes that do not make your customers jump through even more hoops to do business with you

Current Employee – been working at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – exposure to large company politics with an internationally recognized name. Looks good on resume for future job.

Cons – Japanese management is terrible and understanding the US market needs and how to motivate a US team. Many missed opportunities due to avoiding risk. A company that strives to break-even will never succeed in tough economic times. It is likely that your boss is less competent for their job than you are.
Too much reliance on Japanese teams overseas to support small US operational teams.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't be quick to mistrust the non-Japanese management. Many US management team members have more relevant experience than their Japanese counterparts.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – There is tremendous opportunity for growth with a company that is well known in Japan, but less known in the US. The products are solid, and management seems to be fairly stable. The benefits package is comparable to other large US companies, with good health plans and matching 401K. General employee morale seems to be positive.

Cons – The company is owned by NEC Japan, and foreign leadership & culture is sometimes difficult to understand. There is a long wait for some products, due to lead times from Japanese manufacturing facilities - this causes stress for employees who deal with customers used to quick turnaround from competitors like IBM, HP, and Dell.

Advice to Senior Management – Push back more on the leadership from NEC Japan, and strive to do things more targeted at the American market.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NEC Corporation of America

Pros – Stable company, cultural diversity, advanced products

Cons – bureaucracy, foreign ownweship, unfocused strategies

Advice to Senior Management – localize decisions

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NEC Corporation of America full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - Is a huge corporation
- Brand well-known
- Pretty innovative, but...

Cons – - Zero ability to execute
- Outside Japan, the people in the company are very confortable. It seems nobody cares about losing targets

Advice to Senior Management – Understand that the business is not equal in the rest of the world than in Japan. Be a more american-like company

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company