A disaster zone of failed strategy and low morale - avoid - Anonymous employee BAE Systems Employee Review

I was in a role that matrix reported to two members of the main board. This business has really gone off the rails (eg staff morale, financial performance, geographically over-extended) due to an acute pressure (from the shareholder BAE Systems) to deliver very steep 'hockey stick' growth rather than steady sustainable growth. This pressure for growth above all else has driven a number of rushed acquisitions and is also behind the attempt to 'pivot' the entire company to be more focused on products and cloud solutions rather than the Detica origins of consulting and system integration (which is inherently harder to grow quickly). The business is now too complicated, isn't properly integrated and is spread across too many countries for its size. In my time working there, there was endless 'double speak' as the leadership tried to talk up how well the strategy is going, whilst the financial results and staff morale were going south. The recent public results reveal a financial loss and only 11% growth despite £hundreds of millions of investment in acquisitions - and being in a number of markets that should be really strong.