IQVIA reviews

3.7

72% would recommend to a friend

(15,235 total reviews)
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Ari Bousbib

76% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

IQVIA has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 15,235 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The IQVIA employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmazeutika & Biotechnologie industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

15K reviews
1.0
Apr 21, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you are on the consulting side of the business, that is probably the only area that is allowed to grow within the United States. They do offer 401k matching and a pension. Vacation benefits are slightly above average, but there are many restrictions on when you can use them and many years you will not be able to take all your vacation time. Lower level managers do what they can and every one I worked for was extremely personable and supportive. I believe they are using the hand they are dealt to the best of their abilities, but there is very little room for flexibility and innovation. The business itself is extremely stable, as IMS Health essentially has a monopoly in the sector that they operate in. Their data is critical to the pharmaceutical companies and people that buy their data.

Cons

I was an employee of IMS for over 5 years and I have seen drastic changes across the board these past few years. The number one focus of upper management is to cut costs and that is it - extreme tunnel vision. There really is no company culture, it always comes back to how much money can we save. Casual Friday's used to be the norm, and eventually this became allowed on every day of the week. Suddenly this was all taken away and there were NO days that casual dress was allowed. This is a pretty silly example, but it shows just exactly what upper management's attitude is towards the every day employees. Decisions like this as we go backwards just leave you scratching your head and wondering what the point of the decision even was. Are we being punished like little kids? Or apparently wearing jeans may offend some of them? There is very little concern over the small benefits as they slowly get eroded. Extremely little focus on employee morale and this company is the definition of one that only reports to their shareholders (previously private equity firms). Their is even a defined "us vs them" mentality between teams because of this cost cutting culture. Nobody wants to be the next one to lose their job so people are quick to point out the errors of others instead of working towards a solution. I have seen quite a few bright young people come into the company, only to watch them leave one or two years later. I know this is more the norm these days, but IMS seems to be bleeding talent. And the talent that does not leave on their own choice, many lay offs occur and the job is outsourced to a different country. And that is not to say that the new person isn't smart, but people who have built relationships and knowledge for 5,10,15,20 years are being let go. A lot of knowledge is lost in that process and the same relationships are simply not built when a person is on a completely different continent. Their are a lot of antiquated processes where one person has been doing the same thing for 10 years, but very little documentation on the process. That is because that single point of knowledge has no time to create the documentation! When that person is let go? All the little nuances that people took for granted start to cause errors that you never even knew existed. As more and more things are outsourced, the data quality has dropped and 2 people are expected to do the work of 3 people. And then those 2 people are supposed to correct the new mistakes that are being made and train the person taking over their job. If you are getting into any area on the back end, I don't think IMS Health is a good location. Whether it is IT, data, analysis, technical support these are all constantly being cut and moved elsewhere.

2.0
Oct 17, 2014

Company has lost its values

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent benefits, nice enough campus, telecommuting

Cons

The party line of "encouraging work-life" balance is not something that management actually wants their employees to do. It is not uncommon to be asked to work 50 - 60 hours a week on a project for months at a time. Not only did this lead to burn out among employees but it also caused us to produce and market an inferior product with known bugs as part of our flagship clinical trials system. While I understand that the company needs to stay profitable, management did not seem to have any concerns or to implement corrective measures when it became obvious that they had scarified "quantity" for "quality". I was a permanent employee of the Q for 15 years and left at the end of 2013 after the department I was in descended into dysfunction of epic proportions. Management within my department was ineffective and short-sighted and played "favorites" with staff. Additionally, when the new CEO (Tom Pike) was brought in, the establishment of a corporate environment where back-stabbing was common was born. Pike changed the corporate culture to one where your performance review, while still rated on a scale of 1 - 5, had to be at least a 4 in order for you to be seen as productive enough to receive a bonus. This was different from previous years where the base rating for receiving a bonus was a 3. Because of this, everyone felt compelled to show that they were productive and producing, and so people began to take credit for ideas or the work that others had done, making for a very unpleasant work environment. It also didn't help that management would set performance goals and then not provide employees with the tools necessary to make meeting the performance goals a reality. Professional development was basically a joke and was only encouraged if it could be done on your own time and out of your own pocket. Another issue (although this may have been common only to IT - the department I was working in when I left) was that people were put into positions of management/authority without having been provided training on the appropriate methods of employee management, or even basic ethics. Leaving Quintiles after 15 years was hard, but it was the best thing I have ever done for myself professionally and personally. When I joined Quintiles, the company had a distinct "family" feel that managed to stay professional and team-oriented. People supported each other and were not afraid to share ideas with each other (which in my opinion is what made Quintiles emerge as a leading force in the Pharmaceutical CRO industry a decade ago). The Quintiles corporate culture as it exists now does not encourage collaboration or innovation since people are wary of having their ideas stolen by others since everyone is under pressure to show value within the company. I understand that times have changed and companies must change with them. I just find it unfortunate that when Quintiles changed its corporate culture, it seemed to forget that while it was there to make a profit, they also were there to assist in the conduct of clinical trials and the betterment of their fellow man. Dennis Gillings (co-founder and former CEO) seemed to be able to balance profitability while providing quality clinical trial services, something that Pike with his non-Pharmaceutical background does not seem to have the capability to do.

2.0
Oct 18, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work/life balance, but that's pretty much it these days

Cons

Annual raises pretty much capped at 2.5% no matter how hard you work or outshine other employees. Bonuses are NEVER the full amount, there's always an excuse from the company as to why they can't pay full bonuses or provide better raises. Growth potential is pretty much nill at this point since most jobs are being outsourced to countries with lower wages, and the only people being promoted regularly are the executives - shocker. I used to try to refer anyone and everyone here, however, at this point I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got no where else to go.

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