Pros
to put pros and cons for this company into perspective you need to understand its finances and org. growth is flat. single digits up or down. to attract investors it pays high dividends. that means it must keep a close eye on margins which translates into ongoing cost-management (e.g. cutting). as a result Finance is always watching and the place is heavy on paperdom and there is an air of micro-management. under this revenue and cost regime some departments do better or worse. working in Finance is very desirable. you are god in a spreadsheet. Sales is also great (besides making your numbers the other caveat to this statement is the account deck you are dealt. old accounts, great. new accounts = look for another job. no serious Sale is made with dated tech by SAG). the flip side is working in cost dependent departments. it sucks. RnD is seen as a cost. Innovation is acquired. All you do is integrated acquired stuff. you will become an expert at lean development. marketing is another budget victim. At least company has acknowledged that by not even having a CMO. there is no customer acquisition its all about shoving more products down the same pipeline and managing churn.
Cons
Hence in joining this company you need to be aware that your happiness is very much department dependent. they try to be a good employer and in all fairness are on par with the market. not modern tech company but other mainframe survivors. - bonus is budgeted. if the company makes it numbers it rains on you. no excuses. and if it doesnt make its numbers you should be more concerned about your job than your bonus - training exists. it is, that is right, budgeted. not always relevant and sometimes ad-hoc. same as other tech dinosaurs. - good health. obamacare increases were swallowed be employer. - pension is matched up to 3% as long as you stay 3 years otherwise 1.5%. - time off is ten days plus ten days sick. most managers pay little attention to the details and the pre-historic system allows for gaming of actuals. most folks working here are B players. very pleasant and not out to get you but also not leading lights from whom you can learn something revolutionary. be mindful of the HQ folks (not SAG Germany, HQ) and the Aris team. very versed in corporate politics, high rate of nepotism. marriages amongst colleagues are common. according to employee survey, people find working at SAG easy and are fairly paid. WfH is common. Sales turnover is very high 73% in 13, 68% in 14. no communication on 15 figure - go figure. as a matter of fact they are having trouble hiring new folks. its not that the products are terrible or the commission is unattainable. the issue is good luck selling process stuff against oracle / msft ecosystems or analytics stuff against pivotal / hadoop ecosystems. the SAG ecosys is non-existant and name from 1970s simply does not resonate. Coming back to cost management, well never really moved away from it. Watch the employee headcount in the annual report. downsizing is active and a west to east shift ongoing. The SF office is closed. US headcount is decimated. How many tech companies do you know who reduce US headcount. Where is the growth? Bulgaria and India. Why? cheaper than US and Germany. Promotions are by appointment. a consequence of lack of growth and investment. And this is what makes SAG terrible employment. the lack of investment means, if in development , you work on old tech and spend your time fixing bugs/custom builds (thats the reality when 98% of revenue comes from existing customers. not bad products) . there is no opportunity to learn about cloud. heck they dont have cloud. its all managed services stuff. in marketing there is no brand/ing. its all second and third rate email campaigning via microsites with boring content. no money for thought-leaders. no need for modern tools. in admin (finance/HR/IT) you are a cost function. what is respected is ideas for taking out costs. processes systems are dated. the big ploy to attract salespeople is iPads. everybody gets one so you look good in front of customers and feel good about yourself. But if you expect to have a CRM where pipeline is automatically available to any exec in a report think again. that is your job to manually produce every month. see ipads can be budgeted one time. systems need to be maintained over years. Consulting is again client dependent. established clients and you can have a fab career. new accounts and you can look forward to time on the beach and training on new tools you will never implement until the chop comes. Acquired companies usually do reasonably well. nobody get fired. in the first two years you are the new shiny toy and everybody wants to speak with you. during this time you get integrated. when 2 years are up another newer, shinier toy will have replaced you or the processes grind at you that you cash-in on your exit package and set up camp elsewhere. and so to conclude. as an employer SAG is OK. great work-life balance. as employment you wont learn anything, you are not joining a special club, likelihood of leaving within 2 years is very high.