Pros
-Great people, just not enough of them. -A very strong backlog of business -Depth and breadth of products -Global -Acquisitive -A very high P/E ratio (justified?) -Profitable
Cons
The ACI strategy is confused and despite recent acquisitions there is little evidence of new business being generated from that activity so why make the investments? The market views it differently and stock performance has been strong, but it remains a mystery why the analysts aren't all over this issue. There's a lack of vision from the CEO with regard to what ACI can do for its customers and the market and the "vision" is really an internal operating model which is relevant only to ACI. The focus of the company remains contract renewals and protecting the backlog of business. This makes sense, but you can't help feeling that this is done at the expense of building new business. For anyone considering joining I would be asking for examples of pure new business wins (not renewals) in the last 2 years. The senior leadership team has so far been unable to unblock the most obvious and basic barriers to growth in relation to ACI's agility and competitiveness. This lies squarely at the door of the CEO and the application development organisation. These two issues are the ones complained about most by ACI customers and the reasons given most often in bid loss reviews. ACI is active in restricting or denying payments of commission & bonuses to staff for seemingly arbitrary reasons and this is widespread. In some cases no reason is given. Different objectives between senior management (margin) and the business (sales & revenue) create an obvious conflict of interest which is exploited by management self interest. ACI is overall a low energy environment focused on its huge backlog. There just isn't the electricity in the air that you find in other organisations where there is excitement about the vision and the possibilities for the company and its customers. This is the most disappointing aspect of being at ACI.