Good stable employer for those with good people skills (detailed review)
Pros
Computacenter UK is generally a good place to work, has a culture that many enjoy and gives the opportunity to shine if you are productive, effective and good with people. From a technology and service perspective, they are responsive to customer demand and whilst they are rarely 'first-movers' or 'fast followers', they do like to dominate in their chosen markets and tend to catch up with proven solutions before they have a chance to be left behind. This means that both employees and clients can rely on Computacenter to be involved in all the current technology trends - if you like the culture, it's a really good long-term, stable place to be. To understand Computacenter's UK culture (and why many reviews say 'your face needs to fit') you have to appreciate that their target market is the majority of the UK's large and medium sizes businesses. CC is first and foremost driven by their clients demands and cultural fit with the client is a big part of this. As a result, much of CC's culture reflects predictable norms of the general UK population but with a bias towards success and pragmatism. Management generally recognise that corporate IT services is a people-driven business as much as technology, so those who fit well into normal life, those who are productive and effective, and those who are good with people or have good communication skills - tend to be successful at Computacenter and have a great time doing so.
Cons
Overall - don't let any of the other reviews put you off from applying for a job at Computacenter if you are interested in the role. This includes any potential Sales Associate applicants - there is a previous negative review for the program but it demonstrates more about that persons cultural fit than it does about the program - CC has a lot of great sales people to learn from. The downside of having a culture based on a cultural fit with clients, is that it means the bad parts of normal every day working life exist in Computacenter too just as they do in other medium and large companies. Management surrounded by 'yes men'? Just like everywhere else. Bad decisions? Sometimes, just like everywhere else. People getting unfair performance reviews and bad pay rises? Just like everywhere else. But overall, it's probably no worse and in many parts much better than any other medium sized company operating on tight margins. Whilst pockets of management are not so good, generally they do deal with anything toxic once it becomes an issue at a senior enough level. Computacenter knows it's a people-driven business and in terms of management, it's generally those with the best people skills that get promoted over and above those that would make the best decisions. This does lead to some bad decisions (and there look to be a few disgruntled employees here on Glassdoor as a result) but it also minimises the risk of too many disruptive managers that might otherwise take focus away from servicing CC's clients. This is part of the reason why CC has remained a stable, growing company for 30+ years, and remains a good long-term place to work for those that enjoy the culture. Given CC is an IT company, in my view the main downside of CC's UK culture is that anything too innovative or creative will be resisted. This is because a) there are not enough top-quality staff available to implement good ideas which means if tried they usually fail, and b) in CC management culture, it is always better to be right, than it is to risk being wrong by trying something new. 5 years ago, it used to be said that CC would give you "enough rope to hang yourself" - meaning you could try anything if you could get some support to give it a go - but you would lose all credibility within the company if anything went wrong. Plenty of ideas were tried and such is the nature of new ideas, plenty failed. Unfortunately CC operates on fairly tight margins and these failures cost money, so rather than encouraging better ideas and better execution, increased governance was introduced to prevent future failure. This discouraged new ideas from being supported in the first place and reduced the likelihood of anything new and exciting from being tried unless it had CEO support (e.g. their NGSD service had CEO support and is excellent). It also means CC were often behind the curve when it came to making improvements to their internal processes - and this was starting to have impact on customers by the time I left. Until this fear of failure changes, CC will never be a cutting edge, world-leading or innovative place to work so don't apply if that's what you are looking for. But if you want to enjoy working at a successful, stable, medium-sized IT company that does plenty of things really well, that has some of the UK's largest organisations as clients, and if you have good people skills - then you should apply.
