Vantaggi
- Overall company vision is great! Being able to use first party data from all of Rakuten's companies to have a more targeted approach to digital marketing is industry-defining and grandiose. - A lot of GREAT players in the company with big visions themselves and the abilities to take the company there. - Deep pockets from Rakuten to fund technology and innovation. Once the company turns the corner and shifts into high gear, it will be a force to be reckoned with. - Lots of tenured employees from several of the acquisitions. People are sticking around, and are getting promoted. This company is ripe for all-stars to come in and make a difference, and make their careers out of it. - Relatively transparent. I love the All Company Meetings that happen every week. It's good to get a pulse on the company and see what's happening around the globe. Weekly updates from random organizations help you catch the vision where the company is going.
Svantaggi
- Who's heard of Rakuten? I never did, until I started working here. Neither have my prospects. - Everybody keeps hanging on, waiting for the technology and infrastructure to catch up to our vision. I'm not so sure that's going to happen soon. In the next 5 years? Sure. In the next 5 months? No. - Constant changes to infrastructure, but not in ways that we think make sense. There should be one sales team that sells all digital products, not 4 sales teams that sell one digital product each. Because of this, Salesforce is a mess, so everybody keeps prospecting into each other's accounts. Imagine 4 different reps from the same company selling their own product going after the same contact within a company... The term "wild wild west" is muttered in almost every sales meeting. Some business units don't even have territories, they just have sales reps and prospecting reps spraying emails and praying. - Sales talent. There might be 5-10 really qualified salespeople within the sales teams that are legitimately good sales reps. But then there are 40-50 sales people who just plain suck, some with no background in selling media or affiliate or SEM. One of the biggest issues here is the comp structure: there are no ramping commissions; you only make money once you close your first deal, which could take 3-6 months. With that being said, how can RM expect to recruit high-performing sales talent from other organizations? If the idea is to get young, coachable sales reps to grow organically within the org, then say so. - Global organization means a LOT of emails to people you don't know. Need help with an HR issue? Ask around to see who handles HR so you can email them. Computer issues? Ask around to see if there is a resource on-site who can help. Need help getting your phone set up on company email? Good luck, email around to see who the right contact is, from your laptop. Need an account manager from another business unit to get information about a client? Email, email, email. - Comp plan. It is hard to know how much money you will actually make. If you are used to digital marketing, this might not be a big deal to you. However, if you are coming from software sales or some other type of sales org, you may have difficulty predicting what your paychecks will look like. - Sales training. If you are new to ad tech or digital marketing, you will need to do a lot of studying and learning on your own. Although there is a certain amount of training that is set up at the beginning, there is not enough follow-on training to keep you going. - Marketing materials and messaging needs work. We have some great people in the marketing department, but some of the creative choices made by our CMO don't portray at all what we are trying to achieve. The website sucks. So does our collateral for industry events. What's our voice? What are we trying to sell?