Open Text Reviews in Waterloo, ON (Canada)

Pros

Great Work life balance.
Very smart colleagues, core products, visionaries.
Wise acquisitions from a growth standpoint.
As a sales rep my compensation was fair and I did well based on performance.
Great sales culture if you can stay on the bucking bull that is there post-acquisition layoffs.
Great education opportunities.
Entrepreneurial environment.

Cons

Limited resources that are in high demand.
Decentralized integration strategy of acquired technologies.
Acquisitions breed layoffs of legacy staff that often was doing well until uncertainties.
Cliqueish, colleagues become siloed and untrusting if communication not kept in check.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward performers, retain performers. Cut with a scalpel not a hatchet.
Keep TJ in his role, and JS also. Good balance that is needed!
Eliminate siloed departments.
Keep sales goals realistic and attainable.
Maintain innovation of key products. Drink your own champagne and continue
to reward customers who sing your praises with GlobalStar.
Leverage strategic alliances as you have.

Pros

- Great atmosphere
- Exciting technology
- Good people across the organization

Cons

- Salary is not competitive
- Marketing, communications and PR called "flash" and neglected financially
- Boys club - no women on the Executive Leadership Team
- No bonus program or financial incentives for average employee even though company continues to grow and make money
- No transparency

Advice to Senior Management

OpenText seems to find wonderful people, tells them so, and then fails to compensate them for their hard work and dedication to the company. Plus, there is no accountability - even though it's a corporate value - and so it is hit or miss as to whether someone will follow through or not. This can be very frustrating. Thirdly, there is no organic growth. Acquisitions mean slash and burn tactics with no transparency and little communication during the process. This leaves employees feeling uncertain and concerned about being put on the "hit list" -- it builds a fearful group of people afraid to challenge the status quo - a requirement for innovation and creativity.

Pros

Pros: Open text is a company which has grown very quickly and as such there are many opportunities for advancement. The people are very friendly and there is a team environment to success.

Cons

Cons: Very disorganized structure lacking defined processes and support present a real challenge. Could do a better job defining career paths.

Advice to Senior Management

An investment in people development would yield improved employee satisfaction, for example identification of top talent would be a step in the right direction

Pros

Open Text is the market leader in Enterprise Content Management as a consequence of their years of acquisitions: Ixos, Gauss,Magellan, FirstClass, Vignette, etc.

Cons

Open Text assures its financial profitability following each acquisition by reducing headcount - a very common practice. Then come the ripple effects: after marketing is gone new leads dry up; after leads are gone new sales dry up; after new sales are gone product investment dries up; after product innovation is gone you're living on the maintenance & support annuity.

Advice to Senior Management

In your headcount reductions following acquisition, you must secure key doers in each of the core functional areas (sales, marketing, & engineering). Look for doers - they guy that is the core engineering architect of a product, the gal that creates marketing campaigns that generates real leads, the sales stud that actually closes big new deals. You don't have to keep the senior people, its the doers that matter in the long run (2-3 years).

Pros

A company that offers a great balance between work and life. Compensation is decent given how much flexibility we have. Company is growing.

Cons

Not much room for promotion. Bonuses don't really exist and base salary not being increased.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure that annual review does include a fair chance for salary raise and promotion.

Pros

OpenText is a dynamic growing company with big potential and will have to improve their systems in order to take the next step.

Cons

OpenText does not have senior leadership with an understanding of fully integrated ERP systems and the environment required to support the immense growth of the company.
As such I cannot recommend for any SAP professional to work there.

Advice to Senior Management

This company needs a strong leader that can convey his strategic vision and implement it.
Currently there are too many people with different agendas.

Pros

Excellent Software LiveLink to stand behind. Management tries to be sales focused and delivery/services goals are admirable. Management cares and is respectful of its people. Great coworkers with a passion for delivering for clients.
Exciting projects with a variety of clients in a range of business industries, Energy and Power, Life Science, Government.
Some Excellent High Quality people running major account work.

Cons

OTC stretches us in delivery so that it is almost impossible to leave a client fully satisfied with the level of response and project detail. Some newer software modules are, in my opinion, possibly rushed into market without adequate testing, leaving professional services to use the clients as proving grounds. I saw poor planning and product testing by OTC burn bridges with a few clients, technology and service partners.
You are on your own to find answers to problems more than I liked.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in a few key core values and then live them, communicate them and make sure we all will be enabled to deliver on time and on budget to our clients. Pay more attention to the product quality of new code, giving product development realistic expectations and more testing time and budget.

Pros

Open Text has a very laid back environment. Generally speaking they allow you to work at your own pace and you can ask for help when you need it. For the projects I worked on, there were no deadlines and you were free to work on whatever you wanted. They provide good employee benefits and are quite lenient if you need time off for various reasons. The work hours are flexible as long as you get your work done. People are generally nice, friendly and willing to help you out whenever its needed. Most of the employees are fairly young.

Cons

In my unit, it was difficult to communicate with my boss because she worked in a different city and the rest of our unit was spread over North America. I felt uncomfortable sometimes asking questions because the answers are sometimes difficult to explain over the phone or through instant messenger. The set up process is very slow at open text. Many people when just starting sit for almost 2 weeks without any work to do and without a computer or anything and are told to read the book about the company history and Livelink. I barely had any work to do and the feedback I got was always "great job" but I would never see any of my work being used for any purpose.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be great to see a more active boss who gives projects that are useful and necessary. I know the unit has a lot of work to do and I would have loved to get involved in something more challenging.

Pros

There are a lot of really good people who work at Open Text. The atmosphere can be very informal and inviting. Free coffee.

Cons

There are a lot of little silos working independently and not enough collaboration or "big picture" thinking. Management will often lie or sugar coat communications with employees, like moving the date when compensation increases would occur and then saying that it was to align something or other, but it was obvious to most of us that it was to make the books look good for that quarter and to get out of paying the increased compensation for an additional 5 or 6 months. The company is in growing pains as it transitions from a small company to a big one. The bureaucracy can get a little thick.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating employees like children. Tell us the truth and not some candy coated BS about changes that are being made.

Pros

well organised and a reasonably clear mission strategy going forward

Cons

slightly beauractric in some specific areas

Advice to Senior Management

listen more to your staff, they have good ideas and are passionate