Great company, interesting times ahead
Pros
People and culture stand out: generally high quality people who are open and willing to share, coach and give insight. It's a very collaborative environment which can make you feel valued and secure to give your view. It also means you need a network to get things done. Salary and benefits strong, but note these are gradually being eroded. For example, BAT used to say it paid in upper quartile, now it benchmarks at 2nd quartile. LTIPS have not paid out for a couple of years. BAT no longer stands out compared to other top FTSE companies. The multinational nature of the business is a big plus - it means lots of opportunities to work with people across the globe, face different culturals and the chance for worldwide travel is still there, even though budget cuts mean it's much harder to travel extensively than it was, particularly at junior levels.
Cons
It's increasingly bureaucratic and slow to get things done, despite efforts to improve. Some functions such as HR and IT massively behind the curve on efficiency and decent processes - this can make administrative tasks at BAT very frustrating. Growing the top line is hard so cost cutting remains a huge focus to deliver shareholder expectations. There's still plenty of fat in the business but senior management seems reluctant to really go for the big drivers of cost such as the senior management structure, high cost office locations, etc. So plenty of scratching around for savings without addressing the fundamental cost drivers. In all my years at BAT, the company has always felt second best to the competition, particularly PMI. That's depressing. PMI always seems one step ahead and BAT never seems able to do things as well, despite what it says externally.
