Bureaucratic, unmotivated union employee force, low market pay for managers, slow, uncoordinated, too much engineering outsourcing.
Boeing suffers from an aging workforce propelled by the union which protects the senior population at the expense of the company and the younger workforce. Unfortunately this produces a number of tenured long time employees that no longer have motivation, lack engagement, and skew the compensation profiles which ultimately leads to a culture that cannot compete with modern companies. There may well be many opportunities for younger employees in the next decade but Boeing has to figure out how to keep them around in a competitive employment market while also navigating through ongoing cost initiatives (layoffs, reduction in raises/benefits, ...) that disproportionately affect the younger population.
The company is too bureaucratic which directly affects the long term ability to compete. Inordinate policies around supplier manager, finance, and most everything else create an enormous support organization that costs the company and sucks the life out of everyday work for those that are actually contributing to creating airplanes.
I also think Boeing struggles with coordination among it many different business units and organizations. One arm seemingly does not know what the other is doing, as though he company is too big for it's own good. Contributing to this are the number of outdated critical business tools and seemingly refusal to modernize.
Having been an engineer and now an engineering manager, I can say Boeing has problems with how it values it's first level managers. The position has financial disincentive (up to 5% more pay at the expense of loss of overtime and loss of Union incentives) while being a considerably more stressful, difficult, and unrecognized position with a worsening work/life balance. Boeing's engineering managers are considerably underpaid compared to market rate relative to Boeing's engineers, as demonstrated by the fact that Boeing recognizes a level 4 engineer equivalent to an engineering manager. Most engineers do not want to be an engineering manager for good reason, and Boeing should realize this is directly affecting the type of managers they will be able to get and keep.
