Plex Systems, Inc. Reviews

Pros

Plex relies on an annual internal survey of our employees administered by a 3rd party professional who has expertise in employee surveys, Towers Watson. We’ve been doing this every year for more than 10 years. It is statistically meaningful and compares us to a huge database of comparables to help provide critical insight. We use this to measure our employee engagement and identify areas where we need to focus. And the most recent survey shows our engagement is in the top decile, comparable to their best companies according to Towers Watson and our category scores are all in the top performer bracket. We are very customer focused with many happy customers.

Advice to Management

Hire a CEO soon. Plex is VERY selective in our hiring process (for ALL positions). This results in an extended hiring process. As a result, the Plex organization is loaded with very strong talent. While our organization has not had any major impact from this opening, our prospects and customers are wondering why he haven't hired a new CEO.

Pros

I sincerely love working at Plex. There is a ton of room for growth if you are an upwardly mobile individual with a strong work ethic. It is a fast-paced environment and has a very unique culture with excellent employee benefits. Plexians (the term used for Plex employees) like to work hard and know how to have a good time.

Advice to Management

Continue with the transparency that you provide all employees from top to bottom. As we continue to grow, we need to ensure that we continue to maintain and cultivate a culture we are so proud of.

Pros

Work environment is top notch with Plex engaging employees in numerous ways; departments work together well by sharing and drawing in input from each other; leadership (particularly the CEO) could not be better suited for this dynamic company by offering a wealth of experience and knowledge; benefits are exceptional and most appreciated; company has a very bright future

Pros

I've been at Plex for almost five years now. In the last six months, I can confidently say that Plex is (finally) hitting its stride and is performing at a very high level - we punch above our weight and will be making waves in the ERP space against much larger competitors. Why am I so confident of this? A few things -

1) We now have a regular release cadence of monthly deployments that are detailed (both the functional change and the corresponding engineering ticket) and publish this information in the customer community forum every month.

2) We have a quarterly roadmap that we've published/delivered for a year now.

3) We're making long-term engineering investments in the platform/APIs that will build the foundation of Plex will be in the future - manufacturing software as a service.

I'm very impressed with how Don/Richard have performed in their leadership roles. I was skeptical at first, but I can't argue with the results of how far the product development process has come in a year. The reorganization of the development and data center group ended up being the right call - kudos.

PS - I had a very nice time at the company party at Greenfield Village this summer. That was a very thoughtful choice for a company party, and colleagues in my working group noted this as well. This is kind of corny, but it's the little things like this that make Plex a fun place to work. Somebody actually does care that employees are having a good time. Thank you.

Advice to Management

1) Keep benefits competitive - talent is the most important resource within Plex. We're now the largest independent (not owned by a Fortune 100 company / Duo Security was recently purchased by Cisco) software company in Michigan. We have the opportunity to pick up some fantastic talent as we continue to grow. Maintain employee autonomy / work from home benefits (provided your manager deems you're capable/responsible to WFH), fun company events, social mixers on the last Thursday of every month, etc. This is what makes Plex a comfortable place to work- it allows its managers to give autonomy to employees that have proven themselves.

2) We will need to start hiring develop advocates for the APIs that we're building to help our partners/customers that will be consumers of our API. We're going to have a pretty big challenge in front of us for this. I think this is a bit outside the domain of GSS/Tech Services to assist customers with using the APIs. Look at how Microsoft positions its developer advocates (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/index.html) - granted Microsoft is a eight hundred billion dollar company by market cap, but this is the largest opportunity ($) that Plex has in front of it - we only have so many development hours in a week/month/quarter. Becoming a manufacturing as a service company means opening up development to our partners/customers. There's a big learning curve with this though, and we need to assist them on this journey.

3) I really think Plex has the opportunity to become something very, very special. Let's continue the momentum.

Pros

Good pay and great benefits

Pros

The company as a whole is great. The high level changes that are being made are necessary and a long time in coming. The company benefits and perks are better than I've seen at other companies

Advice to Management

Pay closer attention to what is happening in the lower ranks. When you start losing quality people at a surprising rate, there is usually a problem that needs to be fixed.

Pros

The work attire is very casual. In the summer, shorts are allowed.

There are some really nice people who work there in various departments.

They offer a good set of paid holidays and responsible pto.

Insurance offering is United Healthcare which is ok.

They have a generous wellness credit each year but you will have to pay taxes on that.

They offer free snacks, a pinfarnia coke machine to customize your pop and a coffee vending machine that has Starbuck coffee on the 15th floor.

The 15th floor also has a couple of pool tables, ping pong tables, a bubble top hockey table and a golf simulator.

Each year they have 2 company outings: a holiday party (which was at Punch Bowl Social) and a family outing (which was at the Detroit Zoo).

Advice to Management

Do a reality check. You are not SAP or Oracle.

If you wish to grow, you will need to remove many key players making the decisions.

Make sure that all of your managers follow through on HR policies.

Instead of doing a survey, have meaningful discussions with those at the bottom.

Allow subordinates to review their managers and give it a proper weight to keep the good ol’ boys in check.

More diversity.

Treat those who have been let go with more understanding by offering a severance package.

Have a clear direction on what you are and what you want to be.

Clearly define projects and when scope creep does happen, place the blame on the appropriate individuals.

Pros

Some of the people who work there are nice.

They have some nice perks like a nice break room filled with snacks, a pop machine and Starbucks coffee. Also on 2 Wednesday’s each month, they bring in salads for lunch. They have a nice holiday party each year and offer responsible time off.

Advice to Management

Unfortunately, I don’t any since they think that they people at the bottom do not know anything.

Pros

Great people to work with and there is potential for Plex to be a great company.

Advice to Management

The company needs to not only invest in Product Development but ALSO marketing and sales to grow. Seems lately the company has cut way back on marketing and sales and that may end up coming back to bite the company over the next few years.

Pros

Nice company culture until you get sacked. The company has a habit of over hiring and then firing.

Advice to Management

Don't run an experiment with other peoples careers.