This particular business unit is dying. They have had little growth over the past 10 years and given that they are highly concentrated in the oil and gas industry as well as the coal power industry their business continues to shrink. Layoffs already started and more to come. They hired a new VP Sales about a year ago who has been pretty much worthless due to his inexperience.
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Does anyone know if the situation has changed? The incompetent VP of Sales is gone. The Marketing person is still around, just like the other oldies.
Spot on. A Clueless VP of sales and a marketing manager who don't know anything about power. They are not interested in learning either. Solid State is now run by about three oldies (20 - 40+ years seniority) . Once they are gone, the place is toast. When I joined years ago, I was totally shocked by how abusive these oldies were. Took me years to get their respect, but the culture still cannot change.
Oh well, at least I had a good run even though it was tough in the beginning.
Ametek’s model is to acquire and take cost out initially to clean out the excess and improve the bottom line. That is part of their acquisition financial model. Makes good sense. Thereafter, they arbitrarily set a growth budget for the business every year whether the market conditions warrant it or not. Then if the business misses the budget they will take cost, people, out as required to hit the budgeted bottom line numbers. They track the numbers weekly and won’t hesitate to have several back to back RIFs if the numbers don’t hit target. They never add headcount if the business is growing. Obviously this overall approach means that over a few years time they drive every business into the ground and prevent those same businesses from growing organically.