Pros
The only real pro of working at this company is that it prepares you to deal with change and how to deal with incompetent management. Apart from that, if you take on a technical role in Sourcing, you will pick up some good industry and analytical skills.
Cons
Oh, the list is long. Let's see: 1) The CEO is special and unlike anyone you will meet. He is the son of the founder and considers himself God's gift to the earth. His arrogance will be his undoing and he is driving the company to the ground. Zero man management and leadership skills. 2) They don't care about their employees at all. The CEO made his friend who was running the dying consumer facing business unit as the CMO first and now she is the CHRO. She has personally said in leadership meetings that she doesn't give a hoot about talent or the people. Average employee tenure is 1.5 years. I used to attend quarterly leadership meetings where on average 2 leaders would have left the company. 3) They have a devious bonus system. The targets are very hard to achieve, and the calculations are non-transparent (Even to senior leadership!). It is a top down autocracy. 4) They have zero knowledge of local markets outside Germany. They claim to be an international company, but do everything keeping Germany as the central focus. Many people in HQ have been promoted to regional and global roles and are misfits because they have never run multi-markets before or have the cultural sensitivity to do so. 5) Every single decision in the company is made by the CEO and he micro manages to an extent I have never seen before! As the company has grown, empowerment to local markets has disappeared. They also have a way to calculate the local P&L by making non-transparent central cost allocations which basically make achieving financial targets impossible for the local markets. I couldn't prove it in my time there, but I think there are some serious issues at a central level being done deliberately. 6) Most of the smart and capable leaders and employees have left. With Covid 19, this company will be devastated even more. They have a good product, but years of misdirection and lack of focus on the customer experience/delight, has now let their competition catch up quite significantly. It is a matter of time before they lose their advantage completely. 7) Strong performance and local innovation is not recognized. Very very difficult to get the folks at HQ to pay attention to international markets. 8) Internal systems and processes are antiquated! They use home grown applications that are more than 15 years old and have made terrible investments in technology that haven't paid off. It is a nightmare for the staff using these systems.
