SunGard Reviews

Pros

Pays fairly well for the area. Has provided some training. Using leading technologies. Has been getting better at expanding in to other possible areas.

Cons

Current project has been strongly encouraging employees to work more time then is clocked. Work moral has gone down quite a bit with recent layoffs. Very little encouragement has been given towards letting the employees have a say in what happens.

Advice to Senior Management

Look in to better ways to motivate employees (there are some good youtube videos by RSA). Focus more on treating all sites the same.

Pros

Best reasons are good quality of work depending upon the project , good bonuses , competitive salaries. Work environment is good, work- life balance is good.

Cons

Some of the downsides are again not so good work if project is not good , some unnecessary processes, compensation could be better and employee care is ok.

Advice to Senior Management

Employee care could be better for such a good company, unnecessary process should be removed. Compensation could be better for such a big company.

Pros

Brand Name.
Good to have on your resume.
Good way to expand your contact base in industry as everyone knows Sungard.

Cons

Salary Way less than market.
Closed company in terms of oportunities. Opportunities given only to a select few.
Very political.
Disorganized

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees and not just the managers

Pros

There isn't a lot of micromanaging. Some of my coworkers are great people. They are just in a bad environment.

Cons

Those that play the political game are far more successful at SunGard than those that do a great job. There are too many "yes men" that want to please management and won't tell them the truth or question decisions. They operate in chaos mode more often than not. If they'd spend more time upfront on projects, they would save time on the back end. They also focus too much in hiring on application knowledge and not on technical skills. There's also too much growth in India and not enough in the U.S, and Cris Conde tells everyone this is because they "go where the talent is" versus admitting it's because labor is cheap there.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be a shakeup among some in management there if things are really ever to change.

Pros

Large well-established company with a good reputation, yet has a small-company feel since the company consists of a large number of small business units. Good work atmosphere, diverse workforce, many talented co-workers, interesting products and projects. Strong vision at the executive management level.

Cons

It can be difficult to gain visibility with management above your immediate supervisor since the organization tends to be very hierarchical. Not easy to learn about opportunities in other business units since each unit is self-contained.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a way of sharing information and job opportunities across business units; provide a way of rotating people into other assignments across business units to increase retention and cross-fertilization.

Pros

lots of oppotunities all around the world. can learn a lot if you want. flexible for the changing environment.

Cons

it is of incredible low efficiency for reimbursement. hard to get required resouce because of the complex structure.

Advice to Senior Management

please make things simple for travelling employees. please keep the company culture among different area.

Pros

Salaries are competitive with others in the industry

Cons

Too much management not enough support staff. Hundreds of rules for support staff, none for management. Management isn't looking to fix issues, just to make sure they have someone to blame for the issues. They are poor communicators, and always deny knowledge of any bad situations even if they did know about them previously.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your head out of the sand and retain talented employees, not your useless neighbors and cronies.

Pros

The benefits are very good and there is an overall good feeling and support during performance of tasks. For the more junior roles, people get a lot of support and can spend the appropriate time learning the taks and responsibility.
Atmosphere wise, the atmosphere is fairly relaxed, it is quite easy to get help and advice from other people around you.

Cons

It is sometimes too segregated, there is very little cooperation between product lines and it is very difficult to move between product lines.
Once an employee achieves the most she can advance in the London office of the respective business unit, the almost natural progression is to use this professionalism in other business units. this is rarely done in Sungard, there is no benefit to applying for a role from within sundard than from without.

Advice to Senior Management

See above. Sungard is huge and should have better cooperation and support between business units.

Pros

Great place to learn about technology and its uses in financial institutions. However depending on the product you are working on the technology can be up to date or rather old.
Excellent benefits package.

Cons

Not much interaction between different product lines. Great overlap between some product offerings. Some product lines cannot be support well due to key staff not being retained.

Advice to Senior Management

Make more effort to retain key people in products that are acquired. More effort necessary to leverage talent across different product lines.

Pros

It provides opportunity to work closely with an international team .
Domain knowledge enhancement is possible.

Cons

software processes disorganised.
No focus on software .
Siloed structure with limited growth opportunity.
Too much focus on cost leads to a feeling of working in a sweatshop.
Very tough place to maintain work life balance.

Advice to Senior Management

not sure if there is any chance of major improvement till sungard technology services decides to revamp itself and rethink its position in sungard overall.