Pros
Quality Portraiture because of technology associated with the printing process. There was a family atmoshphere when I started in 1997, but that gave way to the bottom line, like with most companies in America. While there was strong commadrie among co-workers, there wasn't much trust with upper management, like with most American companies nowadays. 100 % Employee Owned which was good while it lasted, but we had to grow annually at 10 % consistently to keep the ESOP trust properly funded. This was not realistically sustainable even with the many acquisitions and organic growth. Had some good innovative ideas, maybe with being acquisition by Shutterfly the company will get some of that back!
Cons
Inept and incompetent upper management in both the Ivory Tower and at the field level (many regional managers and territory managers had an undergraduate degree nor any of the skills associated with it. Now you know why companies require this!). Therefore, common sense was not "common"! For example, in the Atlanta market we would see many acquistions of our local competitors, and then before the ink was dry on the "non compete" paperwork, the local photographer would be out there getting back his accounts he just agreed to give Lifetouch: "Shame on local photographer!" But then Lifetouch would continue to do these same type of acquisitions with local photographers that weren't trustworthy: "Shame on Lifetouch!" Believe it or not, I want to say we acquired one of these local photographers twice! Insanity! The ESOP, like many American corporations' pension plans, became an albatross around the company's neck as the company got weighed down by meeting its obligations to retirees in the ESOP.
