Thread regarding Cengage layoffs

@j8 don't forget the drop in morale that is diminishing employee motivation every day. They definitely succeeded in draining the passion out of work.

@j6 last night there was a blue wave. so now MH and Target can embrace DEI again

MH blows with the wind. and can’t be trusted.

@j6 NK and MH doubled the CSM team but the CSM team is losing at historic rates. The competition is taking advantage of all the cengage personnel changes and broken relationships!

@dh exactly right especially at Cengage. Ai can set up and troubleshoot courses, bots can email and call tech support for instructors/students. No need for the CSM team of this size. Which is hilarious since they doubled the size in this last reorg. They are always 10-15 years behind the curve.

@e3 MH is never going to pick you, hun. Bootlicking won’t help either. Yikes.

@dh hahahaha - never seen a company go to bankruptcy from cutting dead weight. Are you dead weight? Or another “former” just spewing nonsense? How’s McGraw treating you? Can’t wait to see their decline as they pick up the trash from Cengage. Enjoy.

@d5 I agree. keep going don’t stop till you hit bankruptcy. I say there is no reason for an outside sales team! Have only inside sales and Ai. get rid of them all.

see you next year when you file chapter 11. Again! lol. lol.

@d4 “lot of good people”? Are you serious? Are you one of these “good people”? Did you ever see how big the Cengage finance organization is? Another example of legacy ET waste - good for DT taking out the trash. Keep up the good work DT, keep going -
Don’t stop.

What does all this talk about CUI have to do with the Finance team being laid off? We lost a lot of good people. Start a new thread if you want to discuss CUI. More distraction nonsense.

@cr Cui was something that another country really wanted to have. Initially we couldn’t because of copyright. And then last year it was suddenly possible. Only the US suddenly didn’t have the people to make it happen. What is lost in the current discourse is there are many other regions who have been severely affected by the changes, and who literally can’t move forward because of the vertical management changes

I agree. You don't need a large, expensive Accounts Receivable operation when you're pushing EA, IA, and especially CUI. The billing process is much simpler for institutions and easier for Cengage to manage.
What leadership really likes is that once a school signs a CUI agreement, the business becomes easier to maintain. The importance of individual faculty relationships declines, the institution becomes more dependent on Cengage, and the account is less vulnerable to normal adoption cycles. That's why Liberty University has been held up as the gold standard for years.
The entire POD structure and Strategic Account Director model were largely built around one objective: driving CUI adoption everywhere possible.
We've also seen pricing strategies designed to steer institutions in that direction. Raise traditional pricing enough, and suddenly CUI starts looking like the cheaper alternative. An institution paying $30 per credit hour under a traditional model may be offered a customized CUI deal at $70, $80, or $90 per student. Leadership views that as a win-win. The institution gets predictable costs, and Cengage gets a broader commitment across the campus.
The problem is that CUI still hasn't taken off the way management expected.
For years we've hosted executive events, sponsored conferences, flown in Provosts and Presidents, conducted countless presentations, and engaged in what many people would describe as "pay-to-play" relationship building with the C-suite. We've spent enormous amounts of money and resources trying to convince institutional leadership that CUI is the future.
Yet adoption remains limited.
One reason is that leadership often focuses on selling the model to Presidents, Provosts, and CFOs while faculty members are the ones who ultimately have to live with it. Faculty pushback is real. Many professors don't want a one-publisher environment. They want the flexibility to choose the best content for their discipline, whether it comes from Cengage, Pearson, McGraw Hill, Wiley, Sage, Norton, or someone else.
Academic freedom matters on most campuses. The idea of effectively steering an institution toward a single publisher model makes many faculty members uncomfortable.
Then there's the leadership turnover problem.
One of the dirty little secrets of CUI is that these deals are often championed by specific institutional leaders. When those leaders retire, leave, or are replaced, the entire relationship can be reopened and questioned. We've come close to losing Liberty multiple times over the years because leadership changes create new priorities and new scrutiny.
That's what makes Liberty such an interesting example. Leadership continues to point to Liberty as proof that the model works. But if the flagship account requires constant maintenance and has periodically been at risk because leadership changes, is it really as stable and repeatable as we're being told?
The reality is that there is nothing particularly unique about CUI. Any major publisher with enough content can offer institution-wide access at a fixed price. The concept itself is not revolutionary.
The challenge has always been scale.
After years of investment, years of conferences, years of executive outreach, years of discounts, years of organizational changes, and years of strategic focus, CUI still hasn't become the growth engine leadership promised.
And that's why they keep pushing it. Experienced sales talent has exited the company, long-standing customer relationships have been disrupted, and much of the institutional knowledge that once drove adoption growth is gone. CUI isn't being promoted because it's overwhelmingly succeeding. It's being promoted because leadership desperately needs a strategy to succeed.
At some point, the question becomes obvious: if CUI is truly the future, why does management still have to work so hard to convince institutions to embrace it after all these years?

@at It’s the new model that is the priority. Equitable access and Inclusive access is the reason. and the model they want so badly everywhere.

For seven years they have been trying to duplicate a CUI deal like Liberty University. but they have not been successful. They had a few wins at HBCU’s but that was because don Dr. Lomax on the board and it was Dr. Lomax who used his relationship with leaders at the HBCU. Universities and colleges across the country do not want CUI and/or 1 publisher! This is the model that “SW” was hired to implement. . and it also why “MJ” was terminated last month !! it’s only going to get worse. buckle up. z!

@aq It's not how much you can sell. It's how much you can get payment from customers in a timely manner. This new regime is entrusting this very important task to inexperienced offshore people. Not very smart at all. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper. How long until they are unable to dig themselves out? Are we already at that point? Outside of Sales the entire company seems to be offshore. Why does Cengage hate American workers so much?

@ap Yea, save 30 million more, but what about all the losses that are coming? We are down 40 million as of today, but that is going to grow over the next 4 months. They can't cut their way out of this sales year.

NK go fall on the sword.... or MH give back all of your income for the last 2 years stop being greedy. You haven't worked in years.

@am , At this point, its not about smart or d-mb. it is about cutting costs. The company is down at least 40 million and that could grow before we get to March 31st. We have no clue how bad Spring term is going to be, but they have the teams trying to confirm all ISBN#s and it is looking very bad.

• K12 last day with fleet was Oct 29th, so that will save us 2 million.
• New Finance cuts will save 2 million.
• More cuts to Come.... whos next. we need to save 30 million more, before March 31st.

@a2 AR are the folks collecting and processing $$ from the customers, not hiding losses. If it's the people who I think it is, many have been with Cengage for decades. In what way is it smart to cut your talented long time people who bring the $$ from customers only to then pawn off those jobs to inexperienced offshore? Just who exactly was the genius that made that decision? A race to the bottom for sure. This may be the final nail in the Cengage coffin.

@a1 announced during a team call. 20+ ppl. They have til the 20th.

AR is accounts receivable. It seems there are many non-employee professionals already working under the director of AR.

@OP what is the AR team ? what's that stand for. ? How many people affected.

The sales are so bad , kind of makes sense they would fire the folks paid to hide the losses.

wow when did they do that?