#customersuccess

There is a question worth asking about the recent RIFs affecting Customer Success Managers across Oracle Consumer Industries:

Why does it appear that Hospitality CSMs are carrying a disproportionate share of the reductions compared with Food & Beverage?

The question becomes more interesting when you consider the nature of the two businesses.

Hotel technology particularly at the enterprise level is incredibly complex. A Hospitality CSM may be dealing with global hotel companies operating hundreds or thousands of properties, OPERA Cloud deployments, integrations, payments, distribution, loyalty, partners, escalations and major transformation programs.

These aren't simply account-management roles. The best Hospitality CSMs often become the connective tissue between the customer, Support, Development, Consulting, Sales, Product and executive leadership.

If Hospitality is also delivering stronger profitability and margins than F&B, as some believe, the disparity becomes even more difficult to understand. It would be useful to see the actual numbers.

And there is another question that probably needs to be asked:

Does the background of the current Consumer Industries leadership play any role in how Customer Success resources are being allocated?

With leadership experience coming from the F&B side of the business, could there naturally be greater familiarity with or a different view of the F&B Customer Success model and its staffing requirements?

That doesn't mean anyone is deliberately protecting one organization at the expense of another. Nor is this an argument that F&B CSMs should be losing their jobs instead.

It's a question about whether the two businesses are being evaluated using the right criteria.

If Hospitality has greater customer complexity, larger enterprise transformations, significant integration requirements and attractive margins, what is the business rationale for deeper reductions in Hospitality Customer Success?

Maybe there is a good answer.

But employees and customers deserve to understand the strategy.

What metrics are actually determining where the CSM reductions occur and are Hospitality and F&B truly being evaluated on an equivalent basis?

Compared to this same time last year, everything is trending in the wrong direction:

• Customer Success output is way down — fewer courses built, slower turnaround, more backlog.
• IA/EA adoptions are noticeably lower across multiple disciplines.
• Salesforce closed business is so far behind that leadership is blaming “CRM hygiene” instead of acknowledging the real problem.
• Faculty frustration is rising — some are openly threatening to switch materials.
• Customer Success and reps are already exhausted, and it’s not even September.

We’re running back‑to‑school with a skeleton crew and a roll of duct tape. Org chart vacancies everywhere. New hires who don’t understand their roles or the workflows they’re supposed to support. Experienced colleagues continuing to exit, and many who remain are actively looking for new careers.

And here’s the part leadership won’t say out loud:

This is NOT what Apollo wanted heading into an IPO.
Apollo expected a clean, stable, predictable back‑to‑school season — something they could point to when selling the story to Wall Street. Instead, they’re getting:

collapsing workflows
missed in‑stock dates
angry faculty
exhausted teams
shrinking adoption pipelines
declining IA/EA momentum
internal confusion about roles, ownership, and accountability

This is the opposite of “IPO‑ready.”

And it all ties back to the May 1st reorg.
The May 1st reorg removed the last wave of people who actually understood Higher Ed The people who stabilized operations, built courses correctly, managed timelines, and kept faculty relationships intact.

In their place, leadership installed a structure full of:

• inexperienced managers
• unclear roles
• pods stretched across institutions
• Customer Success teams drowning in work
• reps covering territories that make no sense
• workflows patched together with duct tape

The May 1st reorg wasn’t a “reset.”
It was a detonation, and we’re living in the blast radius.

Apollo wanted a clean runway to an IPO. Instead, they got a back‑to‑school season that looks like a controlled crash.

Employees can see it.
Faculty can feel it.
Customers are talking about it.
And the numbers reflect it.

This isn’t “a tough year.”
It’s a disaster, one created by leadership decisions that gutted the last of the real industry talent right before the busiest stretch of the year.

If Apollo thought the May 1st reorg would make Cengage look stronger heading into an IPO, they’re now seeing the truth:

You can’t cut your way to stability.
You can’t reorganize your way to expertise.
And you can’t IPO your way out of operational collapse.

I left Verizon about two months ago on my own terms, and looking back, I’m very happy with my decision.

At the same time, it’s difficult to watch former colleagues being laid off, terminated, or feeling mistreated within the company. Years ago, I never imagined wanting to leave Verizon. I genuinely thought it was an amazing company and a place where I could build a long-term career.

But over time, things changed. The culture changed, the environment changed, and unfortunately, not for the better.

I say this as a former Customer Success Manager and Strategic Account Manager who spent many years with the organization. Since leaving, I’ve spoken with others who have also moved on, and I keep hearing the same thing: leaving was one of the best decisions they made.

The crazy part? I finally understand exactly what they mean.

Sometimes walking away from something you once loved isn’t giving up—it’s recognizing that the place you loved isn’t the same place anymore.

Another Monday in customer success of team meetings,1x1’s and posting in slack about how great we’re doing! While they literally preparing us for the unemployment line.

Taking a moment to appreciate my time at Teradata San Diego.

On the Customer Success team, I've learned that great technology only matters when it changes something real for the people using it — and I've gotten to see that happen week after week. The talent here is remarkable, but what stands out most is the culture: people who share credit freely, jump in without being asked, and genuinely root for one another.

Add in the energy of the San Diego campus, and it's easy to see why this place is special.

Proud and grateful to be part of this team. 🧡

#Teradata #CustomerSuccess #SanDiego #Grateful

Got word today that the SVP is gone "retiring". Wild news, sounds like more to follow. Usually this is the fuse that lights the fire. Layoffs and a reorg are definitely coming to CS. Makes sense though, you can't have 2 SVPs over CS and Retail.

Lots of talk on here how LCM is to blame for messing up Corporates, but anyone take a look at the Head of Customer Success, GW?

Not only is this guy one of the most selfish, self involved leaders I have ever seen, he is responsible for offshoring renewals to Mexico City and wasting thousands in failed software initiatives. Thomson Reuters still hasn't billed thousands in renewals, thanks to this guys decision to reorg.

The running joke around the CSM org is he just have dirt on the high ups....

For a guy that singhandledly tanked Gainsight and has never met with a customer, in any other org a "leader" like this would be fired. Thanks for wasting an entire year of work with no backup plan.

If the stockholders only knew how bad recurring revenue is in corporate due to bad decisons they would be horrified.

Why is this a role? All they do is ask people to do their job for them. If you're a CSM I hope your resume is up to date.

CEO sends very vague message Friday about action items across teams moving quickly, not specific been crickets since. Hear Ai to replace customer success and other varied depts.

Q4 starts. If they lay off, its this week or next week me thinks.

Heard 50 people got sacked. 50% from Customer Success. Prayers with everyone impacted. Anyone know if it was both London and Dublin?