Appirio Reviews

Pros

When I joined Appirio, I had been working at other consultancies and thought to myself that it will be the same type of thing, just with a different label. While cynical at first, the company has proved me wrong. Firstly, the culture is fantastic. I have never worked at an organisation where there is so much trust. I've personally never been micromanaged and I have the choice to work at home or in the office.... Though ultimately, we work where it will be best for our clients. The office itself is open plan and in a WeWork office in London. It's not stuffy, it's laid back and there are loads of perks like snacks and drinks, pub nights, pizza meetings and breakfasts. Second is the tools. You are given the tools to work from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. The ease of connecting to the company systems is fantastic as all the company systems are cloud based. You get the choice of a new Macbook Pro or Dell laptop, screen for your home office and a phone (if needed). It's probably been the only company that I've worked at where I haven't received the cheapest option from the hardware supplier! Appirio also have great IT support - just create a ticket and it's all logged in Salesforce. Full transparency of where your request is and no having to wait on the end of a phone line listening to dodgy hold music. Third is the knowledge sharing and support. I had previously worked at companies that had aspired to be at the level of knowledge sharing that Appirio is at. There are Centre of Excellence groups for various clouds and systems that you consult in or have an interest in. You can participate in these to receive help or offer help to other employees. These networks are worldwide as well, which is important so regional silos are not created. We have a library of re-usable assets so that we do not have recreate everything from scratch each time there is a new project. Then, there is a the fabulous discussions email group. Anyone can email this if they are seeking help and anyone from the newest graduate recruit, to an MVP or the CEO could respond! Career wise, it was one of the best decisions I made. Appirio has given me the opportunity to grow my career, support to take all the certifications I want and work on lots of interesting projects.

Cons

It's not without the normal challenges that go with a consulting career. At times, you're expected to go above and beyond, work late nights or weekends to get things done. You need to be able to travel. You need to be able to travel at short notice too! But...this is a fairly common issue with any consulting or project-based type job. If you see yourself as an "all-rounder" in terms of PM, technical and BA skills..., it's a little hard to apply this within Appirio's method of working using the Appirio Way. The roles and responsibilities are very defined between all the roles and it's difficult to switch from one to the other.

Advice to Management

After the acquisition, there was uncertainty that processes, culture and tools would change for the worst. So far this hasn't happened so please keep it that way!

Pros

I get to work with the best people I have worked with in my career and love the work we do for our customers

Cons

I used to say that this is the best company I've worked for however, it is being ruined by Wipro. The huge change to the culture, lack of salary reviews and decrease in benefit package are forcing people to leave the company and making this an unhappy place to work.

Advice to Management

Stop the onslaught of changes imposed by Wipro. We need to get back to what Appirio used to be about and retain our talented people. We need to take control back and be able to manage our own teams again without all the restrictions being imposed on us.

Pros

At the time when I joined Appirio, I was disappointed by the Service industry in general. In my experience of SI's of all sizes, I’ve found that people were considered as commodities and treated as such. Little care about employee burn-out, little interest in developing people, no consideration whatsoever for team morale. It is surprising as it all participate in nurturing top notch consultants who will become... capable to handle more challenges. At Appirio it's not working like that at all. First, Appirio is championing one approach of Customer Experience based around the employees: the Worker Experience. Because it’s the policy to eat your own dog food, employees are taken care of, they are provided with top qualities tools (check my new MacBook Pro) and general use of cloud apps make remote collaborative work a reality. In fact the company only use cloud computing and doesn’t run any server! There are multiple practices, I’m working in the Salesforce one. My colleagues are all experts in one thing or another which makes project work less stressful than in previous experience. There’s a great ambiance at work and I’m always smiling when I’m going to the office. There’s quite a few funny characters and some good banter too. There’s often a cool musical background and the dress is quite relaxed: focus in on results not appearance. As a result, people don't leave after a few months as I've witnessed in my recent past, hence delivery teams remain very stable for the duration of an engagement. My management is quite caring and spend enough one-to-one time with me in my opinion. We went through an acquisition, but the culture is unchanged. The project methodology is very robust and efficient and the implementation tools built on Salesforce are unbelievably powerful. All in all, this has been my best career move ever and it’s why I’m sharing my feedback here on Glassdoor; I wouldn’t usually bother. Appirio offered me the break I have been looking for years and I am now relaunching my career. It feels good. :)

Cons

Hmmm.. not sure what to whinge about really...

Pros

Absolutely none, to commend this appalling company on!

Cons

So many to mention, so will name a few... Project Lead brown noses' with management, who happen to be close friends and treat PM very badly, undermining everything they do.

Advice to Management

Get rid of project leads and get people in who treat the staff they manage fairly

Pros

If you are a pro-active person who can engage yourself in the work at hand, then Appirio is an absolutely amazing company to work for. I loved the freedom to work from anywhere and basically anytime you want. And there are loads of different types of projects to be involved in - many different verticals. I found the on-boarding program to be excellent, and I was able to connect to my colleagues in the UK as well... as US and India quite quickly because of that program. Appirio has the best tools I have ever worked with. They are practicing what they are preaching when it comes to cloud infrastructure. I found that my managers in the London office were honest, transparent and reliable - something I had really been missing in my career prior to Appirio. Also, if you exhibit trustworthy behaviour, you will find yourself being in a company who doesn't micromanage your work. If you like travelling for work, I would definitely recommend becoming an Appirio consultant.

Cons

If you are a person who is waiting to be put to work, or if you struggle to reach out to people you don't know, then Appirio might not be the right place for you. In my experience it's a company that relies on people being able to form strong bonds to colleagues and customers via video conferencing and online collaboration.

Advice to Management

When the merge with Wipro is completed sometime later this year, please ensure that the unique Appirio culture isn't diluted.

Pros

Great culture, work life balance, awesome LT, great recognition, achievable OTE. Inclusive environment with great out of work social. Great managerial support.

Cons

Not the best on boarding, career progression can be slow if you're looking to jump ranks quick.

Advice to Management

More immersive learning with partners.

Pros

Snacks from Ocado :) Everyone I work with feels like they are working in the same direction, you are not battling your colleagues for recognition or petty reasons. Management team are typically pretty relaxed and open. I feel I can be frank and honest with them and they will be with me

Cons

While the projects that I work on provide a constant challenge (a good thing) sometimes we make things harder than they need to be (lack of diligence, typically in project startup period)

Advice to Management

Learning from our successes and mistakes must be baked in to our processes and not just rely on individual contributors

Pros

Smart people hired to this business & my team peers were great guys. Also great products to work with.

Cons

The open honest environment that they talk about in terms of culture is not there. It's all about the atmosphere, so many people had left by the time I was finishing up that I was delighted to be leaving. This is not the place to build a long term career unless you can work in an environment with a lot of people moving on.

Advice to Management

People don't leave jobs they leave managers. You've lost a lot of good people and at some stage you have to reflect on yourselves and not blame the leavers for creating the atmosphere & negativity. Human resources needs to be a lot better not functioning properly and needs more experienced leadership. The skill set is not there to train or guide the line managers to enable them to perform better in managing their... teams and to stop losing staff.