Sterling Commerce Reviews

Pros

People are approachable and friendly, and most of the work gets done without too much prodding (usually)
Salary is great
Employees are treated with respect.
If you want to take up some initiative, the management is always there to support you and help you as long as you take the lead and take the project to completion.

Cons

The workforce is small which also means that most of the 'happening' stuff takes place in offices with a bigger staff.
Career growth not very high unless you can move your ranks to management quickly, which is difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

The new acquisition by IBM is a good business strategy for the company, but the startup culture of the company will get taken away. This can't be stopped if the integration is to be complete, but sad nonetheless.

Pros

Sterlign Commerce was a great place to work. Friendly employees, good managers, good benefits and supportive Human resources. Overall, recommended.

Cons

There seemed to alway be rumors of being bought or closed. Never really had a lot of confidence that I would be there for the long haul.

Advice to Senior Management

promote your people

Pros

Now that we're under IBM there seems to be a better sense of what the future roadmap strategy should be.

Cons

Management can be "folksy" but not very strategic in their technical understanding of what our customers really need. We should be able to lead our customers, not the other way around

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your front line managers (sales and product) who work hands on with the customers and have a keener sense of what needs to be done.

Pros

Great Solutions, Smart Workforce
Keeps promises to Customers with top tier solution capibilities

Cons

Sales Org is Silo'd and Small Mid Market is not respected as large enterprise sales.
Sales Leadership is fratured and too remote.
Training is disconnected from sales.

Advice to Senior Management

Too much ego in management.

Pros

Nice Facility with free parking
Basic Employee Benefits are Decent

Cons

Constant State of Layoffs
Big Dreams by Executive Team with No Extra Resources to Achieve Those Dreams
Executive Team is Concerned More About Themselves Than the Company
All Decisions are really made by CFO.
Executive Team and Ex-CEO were mainly evasive and dishonest in their communications and actions with employees.
Ex-CEO was really just a mercenary and had no technical skills himself although he was supposed to be a technology leader. He never programmed a line of code in his life.
Too many decisions made behind closed doors with a few friends of management ever knowing what was going on.
Killer grapevine. The old secretaries pool was a source of constant "killer" gossip. Everyone's salary information and business was out there and being discussed.
Middle Management was pretty incompetent and for the most part resting on their yrs of service. They mainly came to the company with good resumes and they all have pretty low technical and product knowledge.
There is no master plan for the company. Just hit the EBITA targets and if you don't then group cuts and layoffs are the first and easiest answers.

Advice to Senior Management

It's pretty hopeless. You can't cut your way to greatness and you have no ideas. This place will be very lucky if it can stay open long enough to get all the source code moved to India.

Pros

Great workplace. Good teams lots of opportinuty

Cons

IBM acquisition destroyed the moral of the company.

Advice to Senior Management

You should have never sold to IBM. Customer hate this and so do the employees.

Pros

Good work culture, Good compensation and benefits, Nice perks

Cons

Not many opportunities for professional growth, too much politics internally

Advice to Senior Management

Chart out a clear and a better professional growth plan for employees and maintain transparency in promotions

Pros

Exposure to different technology, be curious and apply yourself; it will be helpful to you later. Not so bad environment, after all.

Cons

Not clear communication among groups.

Advice to Senior Management

Be fair and reasonable to people.

Pros

Above average pay packages.
Good interaction between US and India folks. Used to be.
Quite a good mix of skilled people technically and functionally.
Open atmosphere and a good work culture.

Cons

HR is non-existent currently after some good HR people left.
After acquisition of IBM some strategies do not make sense.
Good people left out and were let go very easily.
Resumes do not speak what you are capable of. Hiring both in US and India based more on resume value rather than what a person is capable of even if the person is dumb.
Too many managers and sometimes too much micro-management.
Huge unstructured code base especially of the legacy Sterling products with no clear documentation.
Technically not a lot to learn as everything has a legacy framework behind it. Depends if you fall in the right teams.

Advice to Senior Management

None!!!! They are more concerned about themselves after the acquisition by IBM than the company. Wake up!!

Pros

Some good products, such as configurator and OMS
Some brilliant consultants
Hard to get fired, unless the VP's feel threatened by you.

Cons

Nepotism
A culture of promoting mediocrity, the best people are constantly overlooked for promotion and weak people move up.
Promises made and constantly broken.
Lack of consideration for personal issues.
Complete lack of Integrity, especially in the GDC.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop protecting very weak managers, promote based on ability, keep your promises.