Pros
You can run your own business within the company, just stay inside the rules. Extremely flexible - work as har or not as you want, the result is you get paid more (or less).
Cons
Infrastructure is out of date. Internal communication systems are a kluge of emails, wires, faxes, web-based systems and the main CRM and account management system. They do not talk to each other. Network is way overloaded and slow. Information published in intranet is very often way out-of-date and wrong. EG - it took more than 2 weeks to get my personal color printer attached to my office computer (we have one old B&W HP Laserjet 4 for 12 people to use). Required two tickets with the IT help desk. This is normal. New hires take from 2-10 days to get userids and access to the platform. The elements of the advisory platform are individually good, but they are not designed to work together well. The FA is the integrator of all the company's services - and this cannot be done efficiently. There is NO formal training program for non-FA staff....it is all OJT. From what I see they do not even have a list of skills or competencies required to know to be a CSA. If you want a good assistant, you essentially need to hire and train your own. CAS's try to link up with successful FA's and this leads to a competitive spirit between CSAs - which is a hindrance to knowledge-sharing between them. All this makes it difficult to run an efficient advisory business. Takes time away that I could be using to better serve my clients. All this has nothing to do with the MS-SB merger. It was like this before then - but they now havea new excuse for acceptiing mediocrity.