SmartFocus Employee Reviews about "good location"

Cons

The reality from the inside it's a nightmare, no cohesion, communication or teamwork. Change of CEO and SLT won’t make a difference, just more budget cuts, redundancies and more unhappy staff and a serious lack of ability to service the customers, who by the way are just as unhappy and frustrated as the employees. Toxic environment and certain senior managers (who are still there) treat the staff with disdain which I have never seen or experienced before. I wouldn’t recommend this company to my worst enemy unless you want to throw your life down the toilet.

Cons

Not much recognition for work, money management at the time wasn't great but somehow managed to pay for ridiculous things.

Cons

Total disorganization by those responsible for support and customer success. There is more than one redundant manager, but overall it's a good company to work for

Cons

Unless you are looking for a position in London you will feel like abandoned by upper and middle management. People are leaving left and right, almost on a weekly basis. Most of the talented people outside London are gone already and nobody cares or does anything about it. The company is still not doing well and is fighting a lot of client churn, which is understandable since the products are not working well even though the general idea behind them is good. Bonuses haves been paid late almost every time with no clear communication beforehand. In my team we felt very limited to our defined roles and did not see possibilities of future improvements regarding our professional or personal development. Also, every pay slip mentions a deduction for employee training sessions, but we never got a single one. Staff motivation is very low in general. People do the bare minimum and take their time doing so because of lacking leadership roles and clear visions.

Cons

Changes needed at management. To many chefs in the kitchen. CEO at the time was shocking

Cons

We need improve products & Communications from Management to employees.

Cons

The office is crazy, no processes, everyone is struggling to keep up, multiple projects on the go, they say yes to everything, lack of documentation, no one seems to want to change and those that do are not given the space to do so. Lots of stressed, scared and unhappy faces. The product could be fairly decent but needs time to mature. CEO is very condescending and talks to everyone like they're kids, does not respect his staff.

Cons

Unfortunately all other reviews are absolutely honest and true (except the positive ones which are indeed driven by either marketing, HR or new joiners being requested to post them). Everything is summarized in this review's title: - Promising: when you join the company or meet senior people (President & SVPs), it looks so great everywhere! Great people, great technology, a great carrier is possible, a lot of happy clients and an expanding market for our product... Soon to discover that everything is just "a brochure to sell" and that you've been sold a broken organization not to say an empty shell... - Lying: work and life balance? Nope, forget about it. They will use and abuse you as much as possible until you decide to leave or them to get rid of you. The product is not fantastic, it has evolved from a market-leading-email marketing solution (part of the top 3 world leaders) to a so-called 'Message Cloud' platform supposed to connect everything and finally doing not much of it. Good earnings? Yes, except your bonus element will be highly challenged by the management regardless of your performance - too bad! Not to forget top management skills, don't be surprised if your manager keep on avoiding answering questions, he's got no clue what he should be doing as there is no communication, no strategy and constantly changing decisions from one day to the other... The number of clients they advertise on is wrong (and mostly using their emailing solution), their churn rate is highly underestimated, sales - starting with the top one - keep on selling things which don't even exist or will never be ready on time for an overestimated price compared to other better (proven) solutions on the market. Are you ready for the disillusionment? Go! - Failing: of course the company is failing given the above. Poor top management obeying without knowing what they do, all internal processes and teams are broken from sales (no onboarding, training, materials whatsoever) to R&D (which in SmartFocus should be renamed to "Rarely Delivering") through Professional Services (not enough skills & staff). Marketing is limited to high-level market positionning but no facts. And Product Management is non-existing, everyone has a different opinion on what the product does or will do... Client support is worse every day and will be worse given savings they're trying to make and massive lay-offs coming their way. - Dying: basically the management is desperately trying to shape a good-looking company to get it sold, but only fools would invest or keep on investing in this business. And unfortunately while losing more and more clients and staff, it's going to be critical in a really short period of time... As a conclusion, what a shame! It was such a great company just a couple of years ago which needed product development but since then, management has changed (too) many times starting with the CEO, several wrong choices have been made (reorganizing teams, changing the strategy, doing bad and expensive acquisitions) damaging the company to an extent where the recovery would take too much time and money to be feasible... So if you really want to join them and make money? Negotiate a good basic pay and ensure that you're either fired or made redundant after a few months as performance will not be rewarded unless you're one of the President's favorites...

Cons

Only one boss. The CEO leads by fear. The tech is good but disparate. Very long and unsocial hours. Very high turnover of staff,