Oracle Reviews in Mississauga, ON (Canada)

Pros

Advancement is always an option

Cons

Political at times due to large org

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work

Pros

Oracle is a good place to work - they are very aggressive when it comes to selling their solutions, and they know how to sell their solutions very, very well. Their solutions might be over priced sometimes and customers as a result have a resentment towards Oracle since they have no choice but to continue to buy from Oracle as it is too expensive to replace.

Cons

From an IT perspective, you are pretty much on your own - if you have an issue with something not working, it can be time consuming to fix and very frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is there is to make money for the company and stakeholders, and they are very good at that, so nothing to write here.

Pros

Great name and recognition in industry. Training programs were also constant and continuous. In this respect they do put money into their employees.

Cons

Management were frequently unqualified to do the job, Passion was not there from the management team and frequently individuals would get singled out and pushed out.

Advice to Senior Management

Passion needs to be there more often than not. Frequently the suck up employees are the ones that get promoted and not the ones that show the shreds of knowledge and hard work. Too political with uneducated managers taking the helm.

Pros

Oracle provides a lot of skills and technical training. If you are willing to network and work hard - then it is a great place to work and thrive.

Cons

Expectations are high - however if you are a competent hard worker - that is not an issue!

Advice to Senior Management

Take care to have the personal touch in managing the lower level employees.

Pros

Compensation is generally good for the industry.

Cons

In Inside Sales be prepared to be micro-managed, right down to who you called, in which specific minute of the day, how long you spoke, and what the revenue implications were that month.
I worked for the education division for over a year and was regularly one of the top 3 reps (in revenues) on a monthly basis within a team of 75.
Still, I was continually pestered about call counts/talk time etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Pick employees you can trust, and you won't need to micro-manage them.

Pros

It's a global company, leader in it's field, always looking ahead, it has recognition in the market, sometimes to the level that it is overwhelming for clients.

Cons

It's just a branch, no meaningful opportunities for professional advancement within Canada. In particular Oracle Direct, it is considered as the 'call center' of Oracle, and eventhough your senior management will be requiring you to be strategic in your work, the compensation only compensates the ones who meet the metrics (eg. average 50 calls per day, etc) If you can't deliver that on a consistent manner, you could be in serious problems.

Advice to Senior Management

The employee capitalization index is very low (in other words, if you bring creative ideas, that could make the company substantially more productive, you might be in jeopardy of loosing your job, and your immediate managers just want to keep their semi-stable jobs). On the contrary, if you are ok just following orders without questioning your managers (without being and trusted advisor to your boss), then probably you might succeed.

Pros

I find the management team I work for is quite honest and open about issues I care about most. There is still quite a bit of openness and reception to ideas and recommendations, however to really make it go anywhere you've got to take the project on yourself and track their progress thoroughly.

Management is also very much hands off, you are responsible for getting work done your way. If you need help, ask and most people will step up to help out. The support from resources all over the world is exceptional, you'll make many new friends.

Cons

I have never known it to be a place where there was a good balance between work and life. I find I'm always needing to work outside of regular office hours and if travel is required there is little support for your travel restrictions. This office is also simply another sub of Oracle USA, so there is no executive management present to set direction and tone. Employee support is minimal from an HR/Payrol/etc. If you want to participate is social activities, forget about it unless your team puts something together. With the exception of regular blood donor clinics there are no formally organized events.

Constant salary and transfer/hiring freezes make it difficult to get a raise or move to another team - acquisitions and the economy are classic excuses. Apparently senior executive management is also involved in all hiring and salary adjustments making it really difficult to get anywhere on these fronts.

Advice to Senior Management

Oracle is a fairly lean machine, there is very little need for hiring/transfer freezes. Sponsorship and support of social activities would make a huge impact within the office. Consistent and regular management training in coaching and career planning may make it much easier to work for you.

Pros

You can learn and get experience on Oracle technology and the new an upcoming technologies. You can get access to training and internal help with technical issues.

Cons

Not a place to be if you are looking for job satisfaction and advancement in your career. Employee morale is very low. Most employees have been getting very limited salary increases and very few employees have been promoted in the last 5-7 years. There are very limited employee benefits (e.g. the Christmas party, golf tournament, childrens Christmas party, stock purchase plan, bonuses etc. were cut or reduced during the tech meltdown in 2001/2002, and none of these benefits have returned.

Advice to Senior Management

Do an independent employee survey to find out how unhappy most employees are.

Pros

- Experience and looks great on a resume.

Cons

- Compensation plan linked to Field performance. If you're stuck with an incompetent Field Rep, you're screwed and will not hit your OTE. Comp plan is also tiered and if you grow your deals past the first threshold, you get paid peanuts.
- No Career development. Dial for dollars like a trained monkey.
- High Turnover

Advice to Senior Management

You keep asking - Why are people discouraged and there is a high turnover rate within Oracle Direct? Here's the answer:

You keep quoting "Good to Great" principles and promote getting paid the big bucks when we close the big deals to motivate us, yet you never apply any of the things you promise! You expect us to COMMIT and bring in our numbers or we get disciplined ... Yet when you commit to everything you say and don't follow through with it or take YEARS to do it ... What do you expect from your workforce other than rightfully getting discouraged.