Don’t Blame Finance. Blame the Executive Team That Created This Disaster

Finance Layoffs??? Why be mad at Finance? Seriously. They can only play the shell game for so long before the truth catches up. If leadership is failing, if the products are failing, if sales is failing, that’s not on Finance. Finance didn’t create this mess. They just finally stopped covering it up.

Firing Finance?
For what , telling the Executive Team the truth?
Finance didn’t make the decision to jack up pricing across the catalog. They only executed what they were instructed to do by the same people who have been making bone‑headed decisions for years.

And if anyone wants proof of how reckless these price hikes are, go look at the actual numbers:

Pride Foundations of Business MindTap:
• 2024: $80
• 2025: $105
• 2026: $160 depending on the option
• As high as $214 if you choose the MindTap with Mike Bikes SmartSims — a repurposed relic that should’ve been retired years ago.

Intro to Psychology MindTap:
• 2024: $80
• 2025: $105
• 2026: $127

Sellnow Comm MindTap:
• 2024: $52
• 2025: $58
• 2026: $105

These aren’t strategic increases.
These are panic‑driven revenue patches designed to cover massive losses the Executive Team doesn’t want employees or Apollo , to see.

And the pattern is obvious:
The biggest price hikes landed exactly where Cengage has the most volume and the most market share. That’s not coincidence. That’s volume‑based revenue manipulation.

Meanwhile, leadership shoved all existing business into the hands of Customer Success , a team already drowning , and then rolled out these price hikes in August, when schools were closed and faculty were on summer break.

Who risks their entire installed base like that?
Who gambles the business that pays the bills?
Who destabilizes the only revenue stream keeping the company alive?

Only an Executive Team that is completely disconnected from Higher Ed and obsessed with forcing numbers to look good for an IPO.

Apollo cannot possibly think this is acceptable.
You don’t increase revenue by punishing existing customers.
You increase revenue by winning business, not by pricing your way into a retention crisis.

Finance didn’t cause this.
Finance didn’t design this.
Finance didn’t push this.

Finance just stopped hiding it.
And now leadership is scrambling because the truth finally broke through the shell game

#ExecutiveTeam #Finance #Leadership #Pricing

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10 replies (most recent on top)

@m1 correction- CSC is bonused 80% on recurring business. They are also somehow now responsible for 20% new business.

@mj read clearly ... was a response... the previous post which stated that reps would blame the CSC team for losing business.// the csc team is customer success team not finance. It was a deflection post from the social media team, but we all know the Blame belongs to NK and the Executive team.

I'm pretty sure everyone IS blaming the eTeam and not finance. Weird take.

@ky a troll?! 100% of the CSC team bonus is based on existing business. So whos business is it really? who really owns it?

If you read what has been posted previously, we all know this set up is Dum-b and would fail, we told NK and he did it anyways. taking existing business from the solution sales and giving it to the CSC was foolish. Relationships matter, and the CSC team cannot hold onto exisiting customers like the Rep who sold them the product. So of course its an 80/20 split in the bonus plan for reps, because again you need the REPS to help keep the business even though NK wants to fully move it into the CSC bucket. I hope he does... so he can lose his job at the same time the CSC is losing all of our existing customers.

You and NK want us to blame the CSC team but we are smarter than that , we blame the Executive Team and the bone-headed decisions by NK, the one person in the organization who has not sold anything his entire life. But that's normally here., lets chose a leader to run a sales organization, yes that one, who has never sold anything! Yep makes sense to me too!! Dum-b ,,, Dum-b

@k3 you are a troll if you don’t know. Part of their bonus is based on retention. All current business is under their purview now, so if an adoption is lost it affects their payout and the solutions reps payout as lost business. And bonus points- the solutions rep will blame the CSC for the loss.

@k3 Long-winded blowhard Truths!

here you are again. you only comment when a posts is so spot on and truthful that it hurts!

you can’t deflect the truth. your responses are so tired and lack luster , you are probably like 25 and been on the media team for less than 12 months and have zero understanding of what’s happening.

How ironic that a "finance manager" recently rated Cengage 4/5 on Glassdoor.

My lord, you have a lot of free time on your hands, lol. And it's always the same long-winded, blowhard post. Every. Single. Time.

How can Customer Success be "drowning in lost sales"? Lol.

Massive price hikes were implemented months before we filed for bankruptcy as a last ditch effort to shore up our finances. Not a good sign.

They did this to Gale products too- things that were $45,000 a pop 4-5 years ago are now $61,000! Even with all the price hikes across the board, the loss of head count, cutting of company cars, tightened T&E budgets- and they are still barely posting a profit. That’s how bad the sales are cratering.

Thread regarding Cengage layoffs

Don’t Blame Finance. Blame the Executive Team That Created This Disaster

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