We'll start with this. The CEO is surrounded by people who never challenge him, and all the while he is in constant fear of losing his power. He looks for people to agree with him, and never question his reasoning, or lack of decision making.
Company Outlook:
Check Point continues to lose market share at such a rapid pace due to its outdated strategy and horrific management. The company places no value on sales, marketing, or acquisitions, and that comes straight from the CEO.
"Rolls Royce doesn't need to advertise, why should we?"
The company grows at 5% a quarter or even less which is mind-boggling for a cybersecurity company. Their 2 main competitors do not even consider them competition at this point.
Acquisitions are a non-starter, and Gil and his enclave has repeatedly missed the mark on righting the ship by investing in bad ideas (Lacoon for mobile security), or by acquiring companies too small to make an impact.
In short, Check Point is getting lapped by startups that are focused on the future of cyber security (cloud, code analysis, etc) and instead is focused on building big iron that serves a smaller and smaller subset of clients building and maintaining large data center environments.
Culture & People:
The culture is horrific as US leadership has zero ability to do anything without Israel's blessing. Everything is micromanaged from Israel which takes forever and creates a culture of resentment.
Want anything approved that is over 20k? It requires CEO approval... Could that work, sure if it was a 40 person company, but when there are 5000+ employees that need to onboard and leverage new tools/sw/etc every year, the fussing and muling over a single decision might take 6+ months.
The biggest red flag is the leadership, and a lack of decision making.
When you listen to Regional, or Global sales leaders speak, you realize that they are incapable of managing any other tech org in the world.
While the 'old school' sales mentality is in line with the technology, it will never help win any deals.
The commission structure is unattainable and no one will tell you where your numbers come from or how they got there. This put on top on comp plans that pay people 25 to 40 percent below market value makes for a really bad sales organization that averages over 60% turnover year over year. The icing on the cake is that you will be selling a product that is 25% more expensive versus your competition, and lacks any real differentiation.
Check Point is also considered extremely difficult to work with by customers and partners. Once you leave, you will realize who few people actually want to deal with them.
To cap it all off, the smug, self-satisfying 'competitive analysis' is almost always incorrect. They make up their own language, and expect the world to adopt it. The data points they collect do not reflect what our clients care about, and the reps (told to peddle this false information) come off as slimy as a result.
The Technology:
Do you want to spend your nights and weekends on support calls with clients because the software is too complicated, and can't be left by itself for more than 1 hour, then do I have a Firewall for you!
In a less sarcastic sense, the technology has been so outdated, and takes so long to get to market that it is never accomplishing anything new, or noteworthy. R80 took 3-4 years to be released, and still was a hot mess for another year or more.
While Check Point tries to pitch the "Single Pane of Glass" it ends up being the single most Painful glass you've ever managed.
End Point, Firewalls, SaaS, etc, none of them are the best in class, and almost all of them are more expensive than the competition.
When new customers do purchase the technology I am often left to wonder, did you vet out this decision, or were we simply the only brand you looked at?
