SPSS Reviews

Pros

Talented, conscientious staff
Many solid products
Devoted customer base
Headquarters in Sears (oops, Willis) Tower near trains and transit, many people work from home

Cons

The company has been acquired by IBM.
Some job roles are at risk as IBM has similar functions already.
IBM staffers are nice and competent but don't have much understanding of SPSS products

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership of SPSS has already sold to IBM and made a fortune. To the new IBM management : please use SPSS products inside your organization. Use them, understand them, and make them the best you can.

Pros

Great benefits, good life/work balance

Cons

Impossible place for career advance, incompetent management, too many managers doing next to nothing. Discrimination of all sorts everywhere you look.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire every other manager. Require managers to have at least some minimum technical knowledge.

Pros

Great co-workers, Casual work environment

Cons

HR policies are non-existent, and it's run by a bunch of bimbos.
No training budget (actually about $200/person/year)
Wants you to exploit employees without providing flextime offsets
Cheap about travel. Employee has to pay, then get reimbursed.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire your HR personnel and change your policies. They're worthless

Pros

Since its acquisition by IBM, the benefit package has improved significantly. IBM offers one of the best 401k plans on the market, with immediate employer matching. In fact, even if you don't contribute a cent, IBM will contribute 1% of your salary for you. You can also choose from several health plans with no co-payments.

If you're willing to put in a considerable amount of time and effort in learning to network and navigate the massive IBM community, there are many opportunities to move into other roles. IBM also encourages telecommuting, so it's possible to find a position that isn't tied to a specific geographic location.

You can learn a lot about the exploding field of predictive analytics and work on interesting projects with smart, dedicated people.

Cons

Limited opportunities for continuing education or training. Since all training dollars must come out of departmental budgets rather than a company-wide fund, managers generally won't approve any activities that have costs attached to them because they don't want to look like they are spending any money. We're limited to internal training (which is not necessarily relevant for every role) or self-education. Unless you're willing to relocate or can find a telecommuting position, opportunities in the Chicago area are somewhat limited. The work at home policy is also very arbitrarily supported, depending on who your manager is.

There are some very poor managers who do not know how to relate to or manage people and who are only concerned with making themselves look good at the expense of their teams. The metrics by which employees are evaluated can be extremely unrealistic and difficult to meet.

IBM is huge and spread out, and it's hard as a new employee to find out who to go to with questions about anything. You have to go through the massive intranet site and hope you enter the right search criteria. The IT help desk is outsourced to India, so if you have a technical issue, be prepared to deal with the language barrier, which can be very frustrating when you're a non-technical user and need clear, simple directions on how to change your password or set up a wireless connection.

Because everything must be reviewed by so many people, it's difficult to get things done quickly. Too much input by too many "interested parties" makes employees feel they don't have any autonomy.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on hiring good people managers, or invest in training for existing managers.
Address morale, which has suffered considerably since the acquisition due to layoffs, rumors, and speculation about what's going to happen over the next year.

Pros

Coworkers in department were professional and helpful.

Cons

Sales management treated staff unfairly.

Advice to Senior Management

Create a more positive environment.

Pros

Willis Tower location made for an easy commute and easy access to many shops, restaurants, etc. during lunch time. Casual work atmosphere. Pay was adequate.

And when SPSS gets it right, its software is extremely powerful.

Cons

Respect for employees gradually dissipated over time. Corporate mindset went from "we're glad you're on board" to "how much money do you bring in," a result of hiring people who saw SPSS as a cash cow and not a company that can provide quality software. IT department inspired no confidence. When I left, morale was severely strained.

Advice to Senior Management

It may be too late, but try to appreciate the workers who have made a long-term commitment to your company. A sense of job security and additional hirings in sales, support, and other places would be helpful. Don't look at the workers as line items on a budget sheet - these are intelligent, dedicated workers that have helped SPSS succeed, often in spite of itself. And hire IT staff who have the forethought to install SPSS on the company's loaner laptops.

Pros

SPSS was a fun, interesting place to work. I worked with great co-workers, on interesting projects. The global scale of SPSS meant working with incredibly bright people from Brazil, India, China, and Europe.
I also had a fair amount of autonomy, including bringing new product concepts to light in spite of being a relatively young employee.

Cons

I hated the fact that stock options were limited to very few execs. If you don't like math and statistics-oriented customers and consultants, you'll feel out of place. Sales reps had a particularly hard time at SPSS since most had never sold these types of solutions to these types of buyers.

Advice to Senior Management

I think it will be a challenge to integrate what is best at SPSS into a large company like IBM without killing what made SPSS great to begin with. I say this from experience, as pre-IBM, SPSS acquired multiple companies--most were disasters (although, to SPSS's credit, it was very wise in seldom over-spending). Having said that, I would carefully identify the experts on SPSS technology who can also connect with customers and make sure you retain those folks.

Pros

decent benefits, started doing a better job training employees, casual dress

Cons

Everything that used to be good to work at SPSS is gone like flexibility to work from home, incentive trips and company activities.

Advice to Senior Management

Utilize some of of the talent there that remains untapped and provide opportunities for advancement

Pros

It's a solidly professional place. The engineers are competent, experienced veterans. As with any place, certain teams are clearly dysfunctional. However, most teams are exceedingly well run, especially compared to the average software house. These guys have seen it all, and have ALOT of perspective, experience, and knowledge to transfer to younger hires.

The Sears Tower location is ideal for both city and suburb residents. Union station is just a few blocks away, and it's centrally located for commutes from the north, south, or west sides.

Cons

As software companies go, SPSS has been around forever. The downside is it's often difficult to push innovative approaches through.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix HR. Weakest part of the company, by far.

Pros

Great Work life balance, supportive management, good place to work for working moms.

Great Flexibility to work from home

Cons

Lack of career opportunities, most people have been working for lot of years so, promotions are very slow. Does not seem like a company to work for if you need fast career progress

Benefits are average, nothing to write home about.
Directions are not set clearly and there is significant randomization. Communication channels and responsibilities are also not well defined across the company.
Internal systems and processes are implemented without regard to the impact across the organization and impedes individual performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on business and retaining talent