Cengage reviews

As a previous poster pointed out, the company's digital strategy has been a complete failure. Instead of looking at the market research (both internal and external) that showed, without a doubt, that the market for digital was 25% at BEST, the Smartest Guys in the Room (i.e. C-level execs Michael Hansen and his cronies) ignored all of that back in 2011 and went for broke in their all digital strategy. A more prudent strategy (which competitors Pearson and McGraw executed) would have been to deliver content to students however they wanted -- digital or print -- and to enter the textbook rental market to claw back market share and revenue. Instead the company went all-in on MindTap, a product which was dead on arrival. The last few earnings reports have shown the abject failure this strategy has been. Digital sales are right around the 20-25% mark, and print sales are plummeting because Cengage has ignored that market entirely. Hansen announced in a desperation move that Cengage will now enter the textbook rental market -- about 5 years too late. At most companies, C-level leadership would be punished for such failures. But Cengage isn't most companies. Instead, leadership is doubling down on pushing products that the market doesn't want. Instead of scaling back digital products to meet cost-conscious students, they are loading them up with more bells and whistles that instructors and students don't want. If anyone so much as hints at disagreement with the hallowed digital strategy, they are bullied, demonized and eventually shown the door. The product and marketing divisions have become cults each with their own cult of personality at the helm. Employees with real talent fled years ago, and much of what remains in middle management are sycophants and flunkies. Cengage now laughably refers to itself as a TECH company. They've desperately tried to implement every Silicon Valley cliche with disastrous results. MindTap is constantly plagued with bugs and failures and can't deliver as advertised. Every quarter the financial news gets worse and worse, and mass layoffs are executed with brutal efficiency. The company is down nearly a billion dollars in total revenue from their former glory days. I expect Pearson or McGraw-Hill to swallow up what's left of Cengage in a few years, if not sooner. The company's investors already took a bath in the company's bankruptcy, and can't be happy that their investments are plummeting in value every three months. The so-called bonus plan hasn't paid out in 5 years. Raises don't even cover increases in inflation. There is literally no reason to work here unless you're a leadership crony lucky enough to draw a lucrative salary and "spot bonus."

About two years ago, they started cutting corners and replacing experienced employees with young inexperienced help, as well as outsourced low end vendors. The message from above was, "Quantity over quality". After so many years of shipping high quality products, it was extremely disappointing to hear this from management.