Pros
breadth of service offerings and end-to-end solutions; ibm transformation story is selling point to clients; investment in complimentary software products (e.g. cognos, spss); easy to outperform peers; used to have a decent knowledge management underpinning- now run out of Bangalore
Cons
GBS partners are pure salespeople (along with droves of account executives, business solutions professionals, client partners). They are not respected by the delivery teams or the clients for thought leadership or business acumen- we tend to succeed at the client in spite of them, not because of their help. In that light, focus is on sales, not delivery. Their is no revenue sharing... when a sale is made, the hyenas come to feast on the carcass. The organization is not only riddled with sales people, but an unbelievably unwieldy hierarchy of partners that bleed off our raises... they do well the rest of us do not. Consultant through Sr. Mgr. raises and bonuses are a joke... even if your are an outstanding performer, you're lucky to get a 1.5% increase. The strategy for growing the business is a joke... sr leadership does not have a clue. Most of the people in leadership roles have never delivered a single project- all old co IBMrs strong on their cronie-style network and low on talent. Infrastructure/ admin and consulting travel policies are the same... gotta love Motel 6- and the per diems are awful. I outspend mine every day. They are taking away cell phone reimbursements and issuing everyone old motorola flip phones with data access disabled. IBM has done more to comoditize the high value consulting industry than anyone could ever imagine.
