Pros
The People. Overall most employees at Kontron are very knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly. Products. Strong product base with innovative ideas being released quite frequently.
Cons
Overall moral should be described as disenchanted and pessimistic. Raises have not been issued in 2 years and many question the direction of the company. New employees are not trained. This is as much a problem for employees with 15-20 years of experience as it is entry level employees, as processes are not explained to new salespeople, program managers, etc. This leads to production issues and ends up being reflected in Kontron's pricing and delivery, which only seems to be getting worse. This is something that has been brought up many times internally and managements response is always "your direct supervisor is responsible for all training's" which compounds with my next point. Middle management is a serious issue at this point in time for Kontron. With top down restructuring taking place many are concerned about job security and are unwilling to train or provide knowledge. Far too many people with "manager" titles are incompetent. With the marching orders coming from Germany and no bottom up review process in place, it is very difficult to foresee any positive changes any time soon on this front. High turnover rate of employees. Throughout the entire organization, from marketing and sales, to engineering and accounting. This is an issue again compounded by the lack of training. Focus on product development not employee development. Overall the organization is innovative rolling out new products and making a full fledged effort to stay on the leading edge with their products, however this is not the case with employees. Kontron's current model, in this time of restructuring and struggle, is to bring in veteran employees with 15-20 years of experience and let them run free. Although this has worked in spots it appears Kontron is not interested in promoting from within or hiring recent college graduates. There are no metrics in place for promotion, nor are yearly reviews completed by managers. Red Flag. On the business side, the main negative that effects Kontron on a daily basis is lead time and internal processes. There are very few formal processes in place for such a large organization, and very rarely are they adhered to, making it extremely difficult to get things done properly and creating lots of back end work for engineering/accounting. These two issues coincide with each other, as corners are often cut in an effort to reduce lead times thus creating back end work. When the processes are followed most in sales believe they are unnecessary and require too many signatures, (there may be some truth to that), that inevitably results in the loss of an opportunity.
