When you lack business acumen, reorganize - Sr. Business Manager SABIC Employee Review

2.0
Jul 19, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The company has a huge bank account behind it (owned by the government, how exactly varies from day to day which arm of KSA, most recently Aramco...) so in theory it should be somewhat stable. Benefits were not fantastic but decent. At one point there was opportunity to work on a wide variety of things that made life interesting, I'm afraid those days are gone.

Cons

Complete lack of business acumen, nepotism runs rampant and when things hit the fan they reorganize and hope for the best. I lost track of the number of reorgs I survived, had to be over a dozen in ~16 years. Culturally this place is a nightmare, Risk aversion to the extreme, not too surprising considering it is based out a kingdom that literally had the head order the murder of journalist that they did not like... Very few people in this company will stick their necks out for anything for fear of having it cut off, more true the closer you get to KSA. Senior leaders have been outright fired for giving opinions contrary to clearly destructive EVP directives... The entire business has been based on sure things, licensing old (out of date) technology in the 70s/80s, buying existing companies in the 90s/2000s. The leadership has zero tolerance for risk although they will claim otherwise, dip their toes in the water and then nuke everything 10 minutes down the road, leaving a wake of disaster with their employees and partners. Their annual compliance training is filled with exceptions, there are rules for the the masses and then there are rules for the home base... Annual reviews are a complete joke, the most recent round ended with edits from on high forcing managers to go back and downgrade a certain percentage of employees to lower ranking to avoid salary raises. They will talk about empowerment but that is exclusively tied to the task-level, there is almost zero chance of influencing upwards. Their recent lay offs have made it pretty clear that they do not see much of a growth future outside of the KSA, it is hard to imagine there being much of a recognizable company left in the next few years.

Explore other reviews about SABIC

5.0
May 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Large Company, prior to divestment

Cons

Currently outside of KSA huge chaos

3.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay and benefits. Good Coworkers.

Cons

Age of facility, lack of maintenance funding. Operations and Maintenance are pressured to do "more with less" constantly. Too slow to fill job openings, rely on overtime to make up for lack of headcount.

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