Engineering/R&D Focused Corporation
Pros
The engineers are treated well, and the benefits are excellent. R&D resources are plentiful, but budgeted responsibly.
Cons
The company has grown up from a very small company very quickly. The kinds of growing pains that take some companies a generation to sort out, Garmin has faced inside a decade. There's a definite disconnect in the individual-centric culture they want to have vs. the big corporation they need to be in order to serve their markets. The disconnect results in difficult management situations, and a serious lack of inter-group communication and collaboration. Garmin's Achilles heel is their marketing. They refuse to look outside the building for help, blaming their self-imposed vertical orientation strategy. I agree with VO models for nearly every aspect of a business _except_ marketing. If they hired a real marketing firm to get the job done, Garmin wouldn't be able to make enough products to keep up with demand.
