Pros
Please keep in mind that these observations are in regards to the Cisco Canada Sales organization. I had previously worked at IBM and Lenovo so my observations are in comparison to those companies. - Great work culture: Excellent mix of young and old talent. Male to female ratio is 50/50. Culturally diverse workforce. Sales culture is the opposite of toxic - people genuinely celebrate in your successes and pick you up when you are having a rough quarter. The virtual sales team feels like a family and spends time together outside of working hours. The virtual sales team is also inclusive and no one is treated like an outsider (no "clique's") - Great work/ life balance: 4 weeks paid vacation. Everyone packs up and leaves at 5pm. Work from home one day per week. A great culture of doing meaningful work, rather than trying to look busy and stressed. Paid volunteer days. The entire company shuts down for a week in August and goes to Vegas (this is in addition to your vacation days). The company also shuts down from Dec 23rd - 31st (in addition to your vacation days). - Opportunities for career growth: In the sales organization there is a very clear and defined path for career growth. Management has the career path conversation very early to set expectations. Every 6 months a batch of people are promoted from virtual (inside) sales to field sales. Average tenure is 2.5 years in virtual sales before being promoted to field sales. Cisco also has these amazing programs: - Ignite: Program that recruits young-in-career sales professionals from other industries and teaches them technology infrastructure sales from the ground up. These people come from industries that are completely different from technology infrastructure. - Are you ready?: This program takes people from other Cisco business units (mainly operations), and puts them in a sales role. People who would traditionally not be able to break into sales are given the chance to try it out - CSAP: Cisco Sales Associate Program - This is a prestigious 3 year rotational program that recruits the top university graduates. Right out of school they spend the 1st year as an Associate Sales Rep (cold calling and learning sales). The 2nd year is spent as a Virtual Sales Account Manager (inside sales). And the 3rd year is spent as a Territory Account Manager (field sales). - Excellent tools and processes: ALL OF THE TOOLS AND PROCESSES WORK. Not only do they work, but a lot of the tools talk to each other. All of the processes are well thought out and clearly defined. There is never any guess-work on how to do something complex. Cisco has mastered the art of simplifying complex processes and executing quickly. I say this because at IBM it used to take weeks to get a simple task done. At Cisco it takes minutes. MINUTES. - Best products in the industry: Cisco engineers amazing stuff. When I was at IBM, Cisco INVENTED a new datacenter product that massacred IBM's marketshare. IBM ended up selling their server business unit to Lenovo. Cisco has this same caliber of engineering in ALL of their architectures (switching, routing, wireless, datacenters, telephony, etc). - Perks: FREE PARKING. Their office is at Bay and Queens Quay and they offer free parking for every employee. I don't think I have ever heard of a company downtown that does this! Catered lunches 2-3 days a week. Annual education stipend to take courses outside of work. Awesome prizes and spiffs. They take over your personal cell phone plan so you pay $0 and get unlimited everything (data included). Amazing high-tech office with 360 degree panoramic views of downtown Toronto and lake Ontario. All expenses paid annual trip to Vegas for EVERY sales rep across the globe. - Compensation: They are the highest paying vendor in the tech infrastructure industry. IBM paid well and when I came over to Cisco my new salary was a 63% increase from what IBM paid. I was so shocked by this that I started researching what the other vendors paid by asking around in my network. Cisco overshoots every other vendor by miles. Their sales quota's are attainable and the accelerators are bonkers when you over-achieve your quota. - Good leadership: Management regularly asks the front line reps what is working and what is not working. They take this feedback and then execute changes to the overall strategy right away. It's almost scary how quick they execute and maneuver. Management doesn't play games with front line reps either, they communicate exactly what is going on and level set our expectations regularly. Another thing I like about them is that they actually know how to get things done. A lot of managers will say "let me know how I can help", but reps will rarely go to them because they might screw up a complex deal by jumping into it. Not at Cisco. These managers are veteran sales people themselves and know everything about the company. If you run into obstacles they WILL cut through red tape and help you close the deal.
Cons
Honestly, there are none. Everyday I feel lucky to work here.
