SES Reviews

Well, first things first. Absolutely zero growth chances. This company looks like a state owned (it is sort of) with an over staffing of 30-40%. People look for things to do to pretend they are busy, no career opportunities and if they are so - limited - they are filled in Luxemburg: a place in the countryside around farms and cow waste smell. There are tons of people that you do not know what they do and have been there forever, lots layers of management and no flat organization: low level analysts do not you dare to contact VPs, you will totally ignored. Blue blood only melts with blue blood. If you want career progress, work on exciting stuff, looks elsewhere. Second, company is damn white male oriented. Not many females - and almost nobody at an important position - and very little share of minorities. Recently, lots of pressure for latinos to relocate to Latin America based on the country they were born (you get the idea ;)). HR is a joke. you will laugh or cry with the annual reviews. The system to reward people (bonuses) has a socialist touch trying to spread it across everybody (in America you usually reward out performers and fire under performers). So forget about doing the extra mile to earn more, it is not going to happen. Workforce is also kind of old, company is not attracting young folks. I have to say though, there are some very nice people around so it is not 100% bad. This company is also very very but very political. If managers have nothing to do, they engage in other activities such as conspiracy. The company works like a monarchy, with the CEO deciding on everything and the rest of VPs and managers working to please him. No intelligence needed. Everybody agrees with him. So people invest their time in intrigues in the kingdom. Some ethical issues - love affairs, over spending, etc - are also apparent with HR doing nothing. Last, I think the business is due for a hit. Most of the revenues and profits come from selling DTH capacity to Germany/France/UK. We are all seeing changes with OTT services, Internet and demographic changes. When that happens, the party here will be over and margins will take a nosedive. Company is slow to make changes, the same incumbent mentality you see everywhere companies enjoy fat profits so to be fair this is just another case of corporate blindness. This is sad, because you see all that wealth and money not properly investment in the future.

Fundamentally I disagree with this company and its CEO so I will leave because: 1) Last year the share price dipped by 26% yet senior management took away over €2m in bonuses. That is wrong. Further the stock has halved again since and declined significantly since 2015 (-80%+). Relatively it has far underperformed the European telco sector. "We're all in it together" Mr Collar? Nope, you're in it for yourself and your friends. No alignment with shareholders or employees. Wrong in the past and completely unacceptable today 2) The CEO runs on PR fumes. For example, he announces a cloud deal with Microsoft. They do not endorse it and sign at the same time a similar deal with 2 competitors 3) Internally it is a mess. Duplication and inefficiency on a scale that has rarely been seen. Back and forth on strategy all the time. One SES and now separation. Fit for Growth and now Simplification. Bouncing from one thing to the next and never executing. This place cannot execute period. 4) Cronyism. Not a meritocracy by any means. Being mates with the right people is the only thing that matters. Some seriously underwhelming people surround you. And that explains the lack of execution So before you join, understand what you are getting yourself into. Do not believe the hype as this will destroy the soul of anyone who wants to move forward. Real nastiness here. Life is too short.