BDA has really focused lately to expanding globally, they have recently merged with about 5 companies from England to Manila to Boston. This has grown their sales force and clients and have lost track of their current sales or clients. There is a reason why companies and people are leaving, a lot has to do with the lack of support for sales staff and customer service for the clients. BDA tries to implement too many new strategies that refocus sales and sales support. Most recently, they have asked us to complete a daily survey rating the folks we work with daily. The questions were very general, and didn't allow for constructive criticism. I'm not sure this information was ever used.
If you try to move up in the company, you really need to be a top sales person or put in many extra house on the sales support side. The sales support teams do so much work, for not that much money. You put in over 50 hours a week and since you are salaried employee, that is the expectation.
Upper management seems to be a joke, they have moved up in the company but aren't great leaders. They do not take responsibility for their mistakes or dropped balls and will blame the account or program managers. I have seen many account or program managers who have been asked to leave as a result of errors because of the VPs. The company restructured a few years ago changing who was the overall VP for their clients and this caused so many dropped opportunities and growth areas, that clients were looking elsewhere.
Since when I first started, the atmosphere has completely changed, the attitudes in the halls is very very low. Their core value is BDA Family, and it doesn't feel like that, at all. They do a lot of things to promote this family, but it seems very forced within the lower level employees and even some management staff.
The bonus structures are out of reach and very unattainable. If you knock it out of the park in sales, but miss your margin by 0.01, and your team doesn't hit their goal, you are only eligible for 1/4 of the possible annual bonuses.
The website development teams needs to be updated, there seems to always be issues with the clients' websites, that comes back and reflects poorly on the account management teams which affect their bonus and sales.
The MFC also needs to spend more money on their warehouse associates. Amazon just moved in not too long ago and offers a more competitive salary so many warehouse staff is leaving for higher wage positions. This leaves the shipping department overworked, under paid and will miss-ship clients orders or not ship them at all. There has been pallets of clients products sitting in the warehouse unopened since September 2017. As of Jan 2018, they were still sitting there unopened, because there just isn't enough support. Again, this reflects poorly on the account management teams and their bonuses and sales are affected as a result.
We have not been able to offer valued added services due to the lack of employment at the MFC and needed to outsource these to our supplies, which cost more than our internal service costs. So we are charging our clients more money, or losing the sale to a competitor who can source a lower price with a competitor of ours.
BDA has outsourced some support positions to Manila, this has not gone well. The folks over seas try hard, but it is just not a position they are used to or a style of work that is needed for our domestic clients. They have messed up orders, missed in hands dates, and have sent proprietary information to the clients. This all affects the sales teams, bonuses and client relationships.
