Massive bureacratic organisation. Those coming to the company from other major companies are often shocked at the inertia of all the red tape. Dozens of sign-offs on small descions are not uncommon.
IT is terrible. Equipment is always out of date, even when it has just been installed. Most PCs were running on XP until last year when they 'upgraded' to vista. Software access is very poor. RR IT department has a command and control attitude that makes innovation in IT or engineering almost impossible. Senior management seems aware, but chooses to ignore these issues.
Cost focus - sounds good, but is very poorly directed. Recently there has been much play of the 4Cs Cost, customer, concentration, and cash! This seems to amount to rediculous penny pinching such as banning the purchase of pens and envelopes, or needing director approval for more than two staff to attend an external meeting!
Recently there has been rumblings of job losses with an anouncement of 2,600 to go over the next year.
The new CEO has suffered a series of setbacks too with SFO investigations for fraud (that happened decades ago) and poorly handled announcements to the city causing a tumbling share price.
My advice would be against joining RR at the moment as there are some long term issues with new product development that seem to be coming to a head. Of course it would all depend on the specifics of your opportunities.
