Pros
1. Colleagues. Scientific heritage brought in by the ones who have decided to switch from academia to corporate makes a lot of difference. People are very thoughtful, curious, professional, deep in their expression and courteous. That propagates further. To some extent. 2. Customers. Who would require access to world-class scientific literature databases and systems built upon that? Right, some exceptional and very demanding customers leading R&D in their domains. The bottom line is, you can learn a whole lot from your colleagues and customers!
Cons
Complacency. Over 100 years of successful operation in a monopoly position gives a sticky perception that nothing (bad) is ever going to happen, so the lack of urgency is profound. "Industrial organization era" type of business practices. Complacency creates a very fertile soil for outdated and discriminative business (aka "leadership") practices brought in and cultivated by mediocre management, also senior. The safety zone is ±inflation% growth within your product/BU upon achieving which (and it is not too difficult, given the monopolistic position) gives people a wrong incentive to install ever-more-bureaucratic processes and do everything possible just to keep status quo. As a result, the organization abounds with inefficient and bureaucratic yet very proud departmental silos that are much less efficient to work with than event contracting a party from the open market. Top-down management and decision-making mentality. It is not unusual to hear about "cascading" of decisions and KPOs. Seriously. Someone would proudly tell you that some "cascading" is required and it's your task to do that without looking at the content. Virtually no one would ever challenge that. It is impossible and considered an entirely wrong move to challenge senior management's decisions, even not openly. These managers keep hiring similar, "reliable" ones. "Strategy" is still a department. I'm not joking. Have some input for a product or technology team or want to bring in a fresh perspective? Don't bother: the "Strategy department" has everything figured out for you in a 3/5-year plan. Send your ideas to the "suggestions box". You are penalized for being innovative. Trying to be innovative and shaking the grounds of the above is a Sisyphean attempt. The more you do it, the more you feel the force of the profound status quo. And once you confront the mediocre environment, it uses its ample arsenal of corporate tools to shut you up. You have to play the game of mediocrity. Technology is isolated from Business (as an example of functional silos isolation). Business honestly thinks that Technology is something you purchase at necessary quantities as water or electricity and looks down on it. Of course: what is our competitive advantage -- technology? Nah, it is our unique strategy decks that talk about how to further exploit content monopolies. Technology, on the other hand, thinks that Business could not care less and therefore blows up budgets and downplays delivery standards. Tech management is so tired of maintaining the status quo they forget to actually work with technology. It's not uncommon to hear a talk about AI from a technology leader and experience a strong desire to cover your face because of shame and embarrassment. Tech is dominated (at least with regards to decision-making) by a bunch of US (and sometimes UK) based managers that share no company values whatsoever.
