Pros
There is a great cultural foundation and working environment here. Other people have written about the location and amenities, which truly are nice. Most people here are young, energetic, and collaborative. Executives are approachable and willing to work with all employees if they reach out. The benefits are on par with what other organizations offer. The addition of the option for local employees to work from home 1 day a week was a nice addition. Work-life balance is great here for sales people. The Forrester brand is respected by clients and future employers and the research truly is objective.
Cons
If you are in sales, I hope you like waiting for your money. As another reviewer pointed out, you only get 50% of your commission payout until you hit 85% of your annual plan. Since the majority of the company's sales are in Q4, chances are you won't see 50% of the money you earned from January of 2015(or the first half of the year) until January of 2016!!! That's the reality of the current situation. Of course, this is assuming that you get to 85% of your seemingly unrealistic quota. If you are on the account management side, you are burdened with a 100% expected renewal rate(when the actual renewal rate is much lower) and a growth number of 30%+. What's that you say? One of Forrester's many research vision changes has eliminated coverage for a client you renewed at the beginning of the year or a new client that you just received from new business? Guess what, you're still responsible for renewing them and growing the relationship even though we are no longer writing about their technology or have an analyst that can deliver advisory around their market or help them market their product. Seems fair right? Please add quota relief for these situations. We're also reducing your territory size by 30%(giving you a smaller pool to sell to) and increasing your quota from last year by 11%. The three legged stool(quota, comp, territory) is now a one legged stool. You might as well flip the stool upside down and sit on that because that's how you're going to feel at the end of the year. On the career development side? There isn't much of that happening here with the current sales training organization. While these folks are truly nice and intelligent people, most of them have never carried a bag or trained people. These are not the senior people that should be in place to help improve your sales organization. You need to invest more in training and hiring experienced people to do the training. Having an online database of stale product training examples is not investing in your employees, it's checking the box. There should be optional monthly/quarterly classes offered by experienced sales professionals who are also experienced in training people. This will ultimately lead to better performance from sales reps and increased revenue.
